I came pretty late to the Tegan and Sara party; they’d been making music nearly a decade when I first discovered them. I came in after the release of their masterpiece, 2007’s THE CON. Their usual method was to space their records out a few years. THIS BUSINESS OF ART came out in 2000, followed by IF IT WAS YOU in 2002, SO JEALOUS in 2004, and finally THE CON. I was assuming at that point I would be waiting at least a good 3 years before I got to experience the anticipation and excitement I knew would precede the release of a new Tegan and Sara record, but as luck would have it, my wait lasted only a year and a half before that next album arrived. And on Oct. 27, 2009, SAINTHOOD, Tegan and Sara’s 6th album (we can’t forget their debut, UNDER FEET LIKE OURS) was released.
As much as I love the Quin twins, I have to say, maybe in this case patience would have proven the virtue everyone claims it is.
SAINTHOOD isn’t a bad record by any means. I’m not sure they have it within them to do bad work. But on the heels of SO JEALOUS and THE CON, SAINTHOOD just wasn’t able to fill those really big shoes.
I think the problem here was something artists are naturally going to face. The Quins were getting progressively better with every record until THE CON and that record was so good it was like filled with the Holy Spirit good. Then the Quins were told, “Okay, follow THAT!”
Anyone would have choked. The lack of inspiration is evident in almost every song. SAINTHOOD has the feel of the two songwriters going through the motions, getting the words down without really feeling any emotional connection to them. And if they’re not connecting, how can they expect us to?
“Would you take a straight and narrow critical look at me, would you tell me tough love style put judicial weight on me? If you’re thinking anything. If you’re thinking endlessly. I feel the breeze, feel feathers of an arrow Out in my yard, feathers of an arrow I take my aim, do you feel me coming close? Take my aim so you feel me coming close"
That’s a far cry from “Maybe you woulda been something I’d be good at,” from THE CON’s “Call it Off”, a line that still gives me chills. Those lines, from the album opener “Arrow” aren’t near as lifeless as the later tune “Night Watch” which opens with the utterly tepid lines, “I’ve got grounds for divorce, it’s in my blood this divorce, I separate everybody, I need distance from your body.” You don’t rhyme a word with itself and you certainly don’t do it twice in four lines. Come on, girls.
I don’t want to give the impression SAINTHOOD is one lackluster tune after another. It is the Quins, after all, and these two always seem to churn out some pop gold when they have to.
SAINTHOOD contains two songs that gain immediate attention on first listen, the hard-driving and totally insanely addictive “Northshore” and the album’s first single, “Hell.”
“Four days, wide awake, why slide along and say Girl’s afraid girl will change just move away Four days that I mention in a song move along, Get ahead, get her head and bring her with you.”
Sometimes their lyrical gymnastics astound me.
After a few more listens, other songs began to creep into my head. “Arrow” finally won me over, thanks to the music though, not the lyrics, while “Don’t Rush” finally hit me where it counted with its awesome beat and killer rhythm, forming an opening trifecta of rock with “Arrow”, “Don’t Rush” and “Hell”.
“The Cure” and “The Ocean” also won me over, both, once again, on the strength of their sense of rhythm. I think if just a little more time had been taken, a few of the lesser songs were scrapped (and believe me, a writer knows when the work is not up to par, even if they don’t always admits it), then SAINTHOOD had the potential to be really really good. THE CON good? No friggin’ way. But it could have been better than it is.
While several of the songs have, lyrically, a love song feel to them, SAINTHOOD is noticeably without ballads. And that’s unfortunate, because these two can write some really beautiful and heartbreaking melodies. I have to wonder how much of the “meh” of SAINTHOOD might be due to the new songwriting method as this album signals the first time they’ve collaborated on their music as opposed to the usual method of Tegan writing her songs, Sara writing her songs, and they decide which of each batch will go on the record. While there are moments of great here, there are none of brilliance and honestly I didn’t expect there would be; the girls have such wildly different writing styles, I didn’t figure they’d mix all that well. That make do, but, like I said, there’s no brilliance here.
Even vocally, the Quins sound bored on this album. Sara isn’t going as high as usual, nor is Tegan quite as distinct. The many different styles these two adopt on each and every record has always been a selling point for me, but on SAINTHOOD, every song definitely feels related to all the songs around it, and that’s just a little boring. They all sound as if whoever wrote them was TRYING to write a pop song. Several parts are very high and bouncy and put me a little too much in mind of Cindy Lauper’s SHE’S SO UNUSUAL, with really not enough divergence among the songs. This is probably why a song like “Sentimental Tune” keeps getting lost in the mix when I try to play this CD. There are just too many songs here that don’t stand up and demand your attention.
I’m still going to add it to the rotation on those days when I’m on a Tegan and Sara kick, because for better or worse, SAINTHOOD is now part of their legacy. And it’s not ALL tepid. “Hell” is great. “Northshore” kicks a**, “The Cure” and “The Ocean” are fun. I just wish the album had taken a little more time to come out, and I wish the overall sound had been a little more inspired.
SAINTHOOD is a decent enough record, I was just hoping for a little more in the wake of what came before.
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