First Aid Kit, “Palomino.” Swedish sister duo First Aid Kit spent the last two years getting back to its musical roots. The first album Johanna and Klara Söderberg produced in their home country since their debut, Palomino is an 11-track offering that’s largely breezy folk-pop. Palomino First Aid Kit Columbia,…

Tove Lo, “Dirt Femme.” On Dirt Femme, her fifth album, Swedish pop songstress Tove Lo delivers another strong collection of synth-infused pop anthems. This time out, she digs deeper into femininity more broadly, writing songs of vulnerability. Now married, she’s said that she feels she can be rough around…

Clockwise from top left: First Aid Kit, Joywave, Lindstrom, Love Fame Tragedy, Jax Anderson and Anna Rose. Every week, there’s more new music waiting to be discovered. No one really has enough time to watch that indie channel on TV that just happens to be playing a lot of…

Photos: Chloe Catajan OAKLAND — Sisters Klara and Johanna Soderberg are known, as First Aid Kit, for writing sad songs and wrapping them in beautiful, romanticized Americana. And they accomplished that easily at their tour opener at the Fox Theater on Wednesday. But First Aid Kit also brought another, previously…

First Aid Kit, courtesy. After touring the critically acclaimed third album, Stay Gold, in 2014 and 2015, sisters Klara and Johanna Söderberg—First Aid Kit—burned themselves out. The duo, which rose above the indie circuit for the first time, had been writing, recording or touring its songs for years. And…

Courtesy: Alysse Gafkjen The two-plus years since 2015 have been a time of transition for Gill Landry. The multi-instrumentalist left Old Crow Medicine Show (with whom he sang and played banjo, and won two Grammy Awards). His fiancé left him. He packed his bags and left Nashville, too, after…

Cheap Trick. Photos: Chloe Catajan and Paige K. Parsons SAN FRANCISCO — The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival brought out the “golden” in Golden Gate Park last weekend. Following a sullen week marked by the massacre at a Las Vegas country music festival and the death of rock icon Tom Petty,…

Van William. Surprise! Van Pierszalowski has a solo side project. We at RIFF love WATERS and his previous band, Port O’Brien. We’re also huge fans of First Aid Kit’s golden harmonies. And with “Revolution,” Pierszalowski gives as the perfect blend of indie rock and Americana. The friendly-sounding song, which debuted at…

Allison, Meegan and Natalie Closner of Joseph. Courtesy photo. It may be impossible to glean now, judging only by the interplay of three-part golden harmonies that maneuver between folk, pop, and ’70s AM radio hits, but the three sisters of Oregon’s Joseph were not always as close as they…

Allison, Meegan and Natalie Closner Schepman of Joseph. Courtesy photo. To outsiders, Oregon is a bit of a mystery. Portland is the land of fancy, sugary doughnuts and hipsters, with their organic pickle farms. Hippies and Nike got their start in Eugene, and Animal House was filmed there. Then,…