Whilst Tegan and Sara have been "on the radar" for some time I can't say I've ever really warmed to them all that much. A pleasant diversion they may be but they've never really done a record that had escaped purgatory in the CD cupboard, pushed to the back and only really brought out when a search for a lost classic reminds me that the CD is there.
Lead single, and album title track, The Con didn't really bode any better for their prospects with this record. Pretty forgettable really.
But then, quite by chance, I happened upon a track called Are You Ten Years Ago, which really did catch my ears. A little bit ambient, and a whole lot bleak, it may be but it sounds fresh, exciting and vital. And I'm happy to say that whilst the style of that track may not be typical of the album as a whole, the excitement of that song certainly is typical of this great album (although I would also have to admit that nothing quite matches up to this song either).
Nineteen amps up the big guitars and booming drums into power-pop territory, Call It Off is an aching ballad, which soars thanks to it's light touch of string orchestration and the bouncy pop of Back In Your Head merges guitar and keyboards to uplifting effect.
I certainly can't escape the "this sounds a lot like Laura Veirs" vibe I continually get from the album, especially in the vocals, but that's no bad thing in my view as Veirs is one of the great "lost" (as in few people have heard of her) songwriters of the modern age. More ardent fans may disagree, but I think this is Tegan and Sara's best album yet.
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