Often, and not completely without reason, Canadian power-pop duo Tegan & Sara receive comparisons to another import from our neighbors – Avril Lavigne. To any self-respecting indie rock group, such an association would seem rather blasphemous. But on its fifth album, The Con, Tegan & Sara sound as sugary as ever and awfully MTV-friendly. It’s bubble-gum pop for about half of a brain, well-constructed but not always so clever.
Warning: Over-consumption may cause minor headaches and heart-aching melodies withdrawl.
The group’s addicting synthesizer and guitar lines have attracted quite an impressive following of fellow artists and gushing critics. The duo is signed to Neil Young’s recording label, have opened for Ryan Adams and The Killers, and previously made a slew of year-end lists with 2004’s So Jealous. Not to mention The White Stripes covered one of its songs, “Walking With A Ghost,” for a 2005 EP of the same name.In other words, The Con comes with some pretty heavy expectations attached. And at times Tegan & Sara surpass all the hype, delivering dead-on, woe-is-me pop bliss. You’ve got to admire the dedication to the little niche the band’s carved out. But taken on a whole, The Con feels disjointed, perhaps because the twin sisters wrote the majority of the songs separately. The album suffers a bit from some musical tug-of-war, sometimes tugging on your last strands of patience as much as your sentimental heartstrings.
The highs are terrific. “Relief Next To Me” starts simple and stripped down to a playful beat, building under resonating guitars and layered vocals. The bedroom tale “Back In Your Head” features a vocal to piano call-and-answer chorus destined to burrow its way into your memory, to be repeated ad infinitum throughout the day.
Even a few of the more “Avril moments” work pretty well. For some, it might be a little too much to hear a singer sing the words “chick-a-yeah, chick-a-yeah” on “Hop A Plane,” but it’s damn catchy enough to make even the grinchiest of cynics locate his inner American Idol.
Admittedly, it can take a little while to get over some of Tegan & Sara’s bleeding heart emotional lyrics. On the almost embarrassingly infectious “The Con,” one of the twins (it really is impossible to tell them apart vocally) sings “Nobody likes to but I really like to cry/Nobody likes me baby if I cry.” Both Tegan and Sara have a penchant for sappy, angst-ridden lyrics.
That’s fine, but when the music gets a little too repetitive and less interesting, The Con becomes far less convincing. The digital blips and bogged-down rhythms are about all setting “Are You Ten Years Ago” apart from any other song on the set. And “Like O, Like H” crosses over into terribly insipid territory. Use too much sugar, and eventually you’ll end up rotting your pearly whites.
A little too cute for the hipster crowd, a little too hip for the manufactured-pop crowd, Tegan & Sara occupy a difficult territory. It seems on The Con, the two singer-songwriters are caught between what they are and what they want to be. Many of their songs err to the slightly forgettable category, best-suited for a CW Network series finale or Grey’s Anatomy, both of which have showcased the group’s songs in the past.
Still, the twins sing through the pop clichés with all the conviction of true artists. Even if its charms eventually wear thin, The Con is an album worth being tricked if only for just a little while.
Contact reporter Zachary Herrmann at zherrm@umd.edu.