In the war between the recent resurgence in sister folk duos, Lily & Madeleine Jurkiewicz (L&M) are well armoured. Whilst it’s easy to compare the Indianapolis siblings to another young pair First Aid Kit, especially the fact they both rose to fame virally helped by a You Tube cover of Fleet Foxes’s Tiger Mountain Peasant Song, there are differences.
Whilst the latter have stronger voices and the souls of departed folk legends, the former have a seamless union of harmonies that paints a far substantial kinship. Just two years after they performed an Adele song looking scruffy in their living room, they are set to release their second album Fumes after making a name for themselves in the capital following their November show at London’s Bush Hall.
With only a year’s gap, the band weren’t expected to evolve dramatically from their debut self-titled album and opening title trackFumes continues their vocal synchronicity and their bygone sound but this time it is chaperoned by an infantile musical box effect, which contrasts incredibly with the grown-up lyrics about cremation and the afterlife.
L&M persevere with their concept of sounding simple and sweet on the outside but containing gloominess within deeper layers. Exemplified also by their mortality lyrics on Blue Blades and how they simplify women through the eyes of male desire in Lips and Hips. Like on their debut, the lyrics are curiously adult, wonderfully intelligent with a sprinkle of feminism and surprising self-awareness for teenagers.
Even though this album is less organic and raw, an improvement that is made within that solitary year is that this album contains an extended amount of memorable distinctive tracks like the bubbly Cabin Fever, that have potential to be singles instead of blending together too perfectly like on the predecessor. The Wolf Is Free a very effective track by both encompassing the best harmony and by being the perfect soundtrack to a children’s storybook animation with drums and salt shakers performed at a walking pace as L&M navigate us safely through the danger of ambiguous sounds representing wilderness creatures. Blue Blades is also a slow building song, which disregards the acoustic folk in favour of fuzzy synths and high frequency noises infecting the patient piano and gorgeous violins.
It’s a really beautiful end to album that’s put them well on route to becoming the queens of the sister duo combo. MTH
Highlights: The Wolf Is Free, Lips and Hips and Blue Blades
“Beautiful dual harmonics with deep adult lyrics.”