Categories : Music Reviews, Rock + Pop.
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Rating: 3 / 5 Reviewer: Nathan Atnikov |
Throughout their careers, Tegan and Sara have written songs about loving hard in all the wrong directions. The songs that haven’t been about love’s failure have been direct predictions of it – The Con’s ‘Back in your Head’ featured the ominous lyric, “I’m not unfaithful, but I’ll stray.” Sainthood is their sixth album and is a clear view of the sisters’ burgeoning adulthood; something to be expected from a couple of 29 year olds.
Sainthood is punchier and more meticulously produced than earlier albums. Many of the songs are built around fractured syncopations, and some of the more memorable ones rely on guitar-less atmospherics, like ‘Don’t Rush’ and ‘Paperback Head.’ In other places, like standouts ‘Arrow’ and ‘Northshore,’ the girls’ usual backdrop of pop-punk and ‘80s synths reins supreme. Absent, though, are the acoustic, emotive laments that gave some texture and variety to past albums.
What Sainthood lacks (and what The Con and So Jealous had in droves) are the killer hooks to tie it all together. Tegan and Sara are growing up, alright – they just need to remember that adults are allowed to have fun, too.
