There’s a difference between “melancholy” and “sad” – and it seems melancholy makes for better art.
Canadian twin act Tegan and Sara’s 2004 release was sad, proving “So Jealous” to be a fitting title. “You Wouldn’t Like Me” sets the tone with some Groucho Marx-style self-deprecation in the chorus of “I feel like I wouldn’t like me if I met me.” There are some standouts among the subsequent tracks – such as the upbeat “Speak Slow” and the lyric-repeater “Walking With the Ghost” – but overall, the album is characterized by whiny lyrics and saccharine vocals that make the sisters Quin look borderline pathetic.
Their latest offering, “The Con,” isn’t short of sadness – its despondence is just fine-tuned into a more mature and, unlike “So Jealous,” digestible malaise.
The album functions as post-relationship emotional fodder, with track tones teetering between forlorn and angsty. Besides providing depth, the dual emotions also allow Tegan and Sara’s individual personalities to emerge. “So Jealous” had the twins’ vocals layered one on top of the other, creating too-close harmonies that sounded grating and Alvin and the Chipmunks-esque at times. But since the twins were apart for much of this album’s creation, there is a distinct leader in each of the tracks, and the other twin’s vocals just serve as reinforcement.
Tegan tends to take the bitter, guitar-driven tracks, while Sara’s songs err more on the emo-pop side, widening the disparity between the twin’s personalities. The title track features Tegan singing frantically over a mellow guitar riff, until the song explodes into its angry, synth-backed chorus of “Nobody likes to, but I really like to cry.” On “Nineteen,” she’s bitter over the untimely end of a seemingly pre-destined love (“I felt you in my legs before I ever met you”). But she cools down on the imploring album-closer “Call it Off,” where she wistfully sings “Maybe I would have been something you’d be good at.”
The lyrics on Sara’s pop tracks tend to be more introspective. The album opens with her stripped-down “I Was Married,” which leaves room for its poetic lyrics with bare instrumentation. The piano-driven single “Back in Your Head” chronicles the waning spark in a relationship, with Sara asking, “Remember when I was so strange and likeable?” She digs deep on “Like O, Like H,” which seems to document the turmoil of sexual discovery at a young age (“S.O.S. to my mother, take the hinges off the door”).
“The Con” is a feat for the sisters, with its melancholy that never ventures into the realm of pathetic. The sisters will be making a stop on their tour to play the House of Blues, Nov 10. Tegan and Sara are bound to draw a full crowd, and thanks to the “The Con,” not because people feel sorry for them.
Lauren LaBorde can be reached at
