Sainthood

In preparing to write a review of Tegan and Sara's new album Sainthood, I figured I would take quick listen to their last album The Con, for comparasin.

I do this because when I found out that the follow-up to The Con would be released, I had to tell myself "there is no way it will come close to The Con, and no reason to expect it will."

For a while, I had been planning to write a post on how my favorite albums are, to this day, albums I first heard in my teenage years. I wondered if this had something to do with my impressionability at a young age OR the drop off in quality of music in general since, say, 1994. I think it could be a bit of both. Having said that, I have heard some great albums in the last sixteen years, but I wouldn't place any of them in my top ten. Some are fleeting (Pretty Girls Make Graves "The New Romance" comes to mind) or some I feel have not been in my system long enough to be counted among the best, despite my absolute emotional indulgence in them (The Thermals "The Body, The Blood, The Machine").

If coerced I would probably at this point name Tegan and Sara's 2007 album The Con as being in my top ten, if not top five. While I think Pink Floyd's Animals and Nirvana's In Utero are almost certainly to forever remain in that upper crust of my musical psyche (impressionability) and Fugazi's Repeater and Sleater Kinney's The Hot Rock (they don't make them like they used to) are ingrained as musical quality standards in my world, I must leave open the possibility that better things are yet to come, and here come Tegan and Sara.

Believe it or not, I distinctly remember the night I bought The Con. I remember putting it in my wife's car stereo, and during our errand running of that evening, hearing just enough of the album to remark "Hey, this is pretty good, isn't it?"

So, having seen them live (with Eileen, John, Jesse, Jae, and Liz, and it was awesome), and loved all of their albums to this point, I was very excited when I found these contemporaries of mine had made a new album.

So comes the actual payoff of this post, a review of Sainthood. I can already tell, as I sit here listening to The Con, that I will be comparing that album to this one.

In the first track "Arrow," the vocal melody puts its arms around me in a way that piques my interest and sets my hopes very high for the rest of the album. For the next few tracks I am not disappointed.

I sense a dancy groove right off on the second track, and I have no problem with that. It is cool. The third track "Hell" is the single I heard weeks ago anticipating the new album. It has a key change in the chorus, yet flows quite well overall. So far so good.

The next track "On Directing" is the high point of the album, though only lyrically and emotionally. It seems to be anti-climactic musically. When you expect it to break out, it ends.

The rest of the album is incidental to me, except for "The Cure," with its flowing melody, "Alligator," a Madonna circa 1985 rip-off, and "Someday," a cool rally song who's message I undoubtedly would argue despite its snaking, enticing melody.

Were these young Canadian twin sisters trying to follow up their masterpiece The Con with Sainthood in the way Brain Wilson tried (in vain) to follow up Pet Sounds with Smile? I sure as hell hope not. (The Con is not comparable with Pet Sounds, so don't even go there.)

Please keep trying, Tegan and Sara, to make the best music since The Con, because you were in the ballpark with Sainthood.