Tegan and Sara
The Con

THE REVIEW

Different Twins  

Two monozygotic twin sisters, born in Canada, in Calgary, on September 19, 1980, identical in everything: the face, the voice, the smile, the short, straight-cut hair, and that feeling that the other person is a part of you, a piece of you, like your arm, your eye, maybe even more. At some point, they get the idea to record albums (oh yes, it would be interesting to know: who came up with the idea first? Or did they think of it simultaneously?...), and each of them writes lyrics, music, sings, and plays guitar, piano, and keyboards, and then together they forge this musical material in a rare harmony symbiosis, so the question remains and intrigues with every new album, every song: when we listen to them, where is (who is, how much of) Tegan Quin and where is (who is, how much of) Sara Quin?

Finding the answer to this question, in reality, doesn't seem difficult. Just take a tour through the many pages about them found on the Internet, to discover that Sara, of the two, is the more talkative one, more willing to share, but also the one who prefers more complex structures when composing, with more introspective, elaborate, and multi-meaning texts. The more melodic one. Tegan is more introverted; musically, however, she lets her emotions surface by expressing them with more contagious and engaging punk rock rhythms, her lyrics are more direct and immediate. That said, there remains, however, the curiosity not to stop at what we can learn about them and their music from indirect sources, the desire to form a precise and personal idea, to fix impressions.

"The Con" is the fifth studio album of Tegan and Sara, who appeared on the music scene in the late '90s with a style between folk and punk that linked them to other artists, like themselves, who took the stage at the Lilith Fair tour of Sarah McLachlan. In April 2000, a contract signed with Neil Young's Vapor Records allowed their debut album "This Business of Art" to catapult them immediately onto the main stage of Canadian folk rock, thanks also to the tour held that summer with Neil Young himself and the Pretenders.

Tegan and Sara rightly dislike labels applied to their music, wanting to be independent from any schematic classification, to explore new styles and musical territories with each new album. Of musical genres, the Quin sisters say they are nothing more than a passport, without which, as many seem to believe, the artist isn't free to freely transit from one place of music to another. However, it’s undeniable that with this new work they abandon the folk singer-songwriter style that characterized their beginnings, moving decisively between pop and indie rock. The record is produced by Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie. He played a decisive role in giving greater prominence to the electric guitar (played by Kaki King), which inserts itself between the acoustics of Tegan and Sara, and especially to Matt Sharp’s keyboards, very much in the Aqueduct style. The bass lines, entrusted not to one but two musicians: again Matt Sharp alternating with Hunter Burgan, are particularly effective and well set.

The fourteen tracks of "The Con" are short, all contained within three and a half minutes. In this way, the melodic lines are highlighted, the purity of the arrangements, the careful distribution of sounds, the always perfect, pleasantly sophisticated intertwining of Tegan and Sara’s voices.

The first, "I Was Married", lets us hear the exact amalgamation of the two voices, which start immediately, moments before the music. By the way: Tegan and Sara seem to want to disappoint those who want to understand who contributes more to the final result of the songs because the work is perfectly divided in half in both songwriting and singing. Sara writes and gives the main voice to seven tracks, the remaining seven are written and sung by Tegan, but the two voices always join in the backing vocals: it’s hard to imagine a more complete balance. We are only on the first track, and immediately the question arises: which is Tegan’s voice and which is Sara’s? Once more, the usual indirect sources help us dispel many doubts: Sara is the one with the higher voice, performing the higher parts. Tegan’s voice is warmer, between mezzo-soprano and contralto.

The second track, "Relief Next To Me", presents an interesting stylistic solution in the rhythm section: two tablatures are performed at the same time, one with sticks, the other with brushes. But it is with "Are You Ten Years Ago" that the album decisively takes off in the direction of those pop hooks introduced by Chris Walla: the singing flows agile and brilliant on a base characterized by the combination of traditional and electronic drums. When they say quality pop. Along the same lines, extremely captivating and pleasant to listen to, are tracks like "Back In Your Head", "Hop A Plane", "Nineteen" (with Phil Collins-style drums), and "Like O, Like H". There are also moments on this album where the atmosphere darkens, making room for introspection, for example in tracks like "Soil, Soil", or "Floorplan". It closes with "Call It Off", a deep and reflective track, yet serene at the same time.

Will the question (Tegan and Sara: identical twins and/or different in something?) find an answer? After all, it’s likely that even the ignition of these curiosities has supported the success that has immediately smiled upon the Canadian twins from the beginning. On the other hand, all this is not really important. The overall result of this "The Con", this indeed, is exceedingly pleasant. These tracks written with four hands genetically very similar yet, as we have seen, presenting characteristics that differentiate them at the same time, constitute not a collection of disparate compositions, disconnected from each other, but a homogeneous and coherent entity. A remarkable new tile in the musical mosaic that Tegan and Sara are composing.

Tegan and Sara, "The Con", Vapor/Sire, 2007