Album Review: Tegan and Sara ‘Heartthrob’

The sisters Quin have seemed to struggle to find the right balance between cutesy pop and emotional indie. Their latest volley is a lot like 2009’s Sainthood, but punchier and perhaps a bit more confident. They have been engaged in this balancing act for well over a decade now, and with their seventh studio album they appear to have submitted themselves to pure pop without regret.

They certainly sound fantastic together, whether in harmony or playfully tossing the song back and forth in a manner, though not a style, similar to what you would expect from a rap group. It’s apt to use the word “playfully” here, because while they have always felt free to get cute with their voices they have never sounded so unencumbered by external pressure or worry over how they come across, and they really do seem to be having fun on every song.

Heartthrob revolves heavily around youthful subject matter, as if reliant on that energy to sort of excuse a more straightforward and accessible sound. The sisters are both 33-years-old now, but they often sing from the perspective of girls half their age, and it really works here. It’s not quite a concept album in the vein of Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs, but it does feel like a decision was made to focus on their formative years.

They have spoken in the past of their creative process, which has always been almost entirely separate with the exception of Sainthood. Typically the girls will write songs independently and come together to record, which would seem to reveal that any stylistic decision has to be a calculated one. They aren’t hanging out together, riffing and sharing ideas and seeing what comes together, but making the choice to agree on a direction and only later finding out how closely their visions matched. That kind of process could easily be seen as an artistic challenge, or construed to be a very business-like approach to making music. If you think it’s the latter, they truly don’t seem to care anymore. They want people to know that this album is intentionally mainstream.

Every song here is a single, but not a particularly strong one, and it’s the same single repeated ad nauseum. There really are no standout tracks, though “Closer” intends to be the big one. It has the best chance of any here, and taken outside of the album’s context it is a much stronger offering. The problem is that when these songs are played back-to-back they start to bleed together far too much, and too quickly.

It’s catchy and fun, though none of these songs are quite as good as “Alligator”, an unabashedly poppy track from Sainthood which in retrospect looks like a testing of the waters. It worked very well, and maybe too well, because nothing on Heartthrob seems able to match it.

In a way, this is as confident as the sisters have ever sounded. It might even be their best record, even though it’s not the one their diehard fans would have outright asked for. They have decided to take pop very seriously, and ultimately I think they have been more successful here than ever before. Without a doubt it is their most consistent album, and I hope they keep playing with this sound in the future to offer something with just a little bit more body.

Release Date: January 29, 2013
Image Courtesy of Vapor/Warner Bros.