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For nearly a decade now, folk-rock duo Tegan and Sara have been peppering their indie-punk output with winsome, weighty meditations on the themes of heartache and love gone horribly wrong.
That the pair -- who do all their songwriting separately, and even maintain separate residences in Vancouver and Montreal -- still manage to stay on the same page comes as no surprise. They are, after all, identical twin sisters.
What's far more impressive is their ability -- even in the face of all that musical despair -- to keep churning out songs that are so irresistibly catchy.
"Well, we both grew up on the late-'70s and early-'80s pop and rock music that our parents listened to," says sister Tegan Quin (the eldest by an eight-minute margin) over the phone from the West Coast. "And I like a good hook. Sara's really more into the indie-rock, alternative-rock movement, but I don't get it. Because you can't sing along."
That's never been the case with Tegan and Sara's caustic confections. Since their early days as punky Calgary teens -- when their debut disc attracted the attention of Neil Young's record label, and later landed them an opening slot on tour with Young and The Pretenders -- the sisters have always been lauded for their songwriting skills and their penchant for poppy hooks.
Over the years, they've evolved from angsty Lilith Fair acolytes to accomplished indie-rockers who seem to be constantly on the verge on breaking big. Their latest album The Con has given them yet another push in that direction, generating good buzz on the strength of their complex, layered production techniques, similar-but-distinct vocals, and shared -- but wholly disparate -- gifts.
"Any given song has a gazillion parts on it -- I'd say it's our most complicated, melodic record yet," says Tegan, 26, of the disc. "I think I write pretty simple things, but with Sara it's like a crossword puzzle. It's like I'm doing a Rubik's Cube when I listen to Sara's songs."
It's nice to see the sisters are still each other's biggest fans, even if their offstage bickering is by now as legendary as their onstage bouts of between-song-banter.
Though the off-the-cuff ramblings are always improvised and never duplicated, the duo adopted a far different strategy prior to recording The Con. Faced with an unprecedented amount of lead-up time, they used the opportunity to tweak their demos into a state of near-completion before even setting foot inside the studio.
The ensuing critical praise (coupled with a surprise cover of one of their older songs by alt-rock icon Jack White), has helped to bolster their reputation in even harder-rock circles, and to beef up what Tegan once jokingly referred to as their "mini-major" status.
"I think we're major-major (now), but in a Tegan and Sara way," she says. "We're always going to do it our way and we're never going to compromise just so we can sell records."
The heightened profile can also have its drawbacks. Where Tegan and Sara were once the darlings of gay audiences (both sisters are lesbians) and diehard folkies, those same fans sometimes feel deserted now that the duo boasts a more widespread appeal.
"But I don't want people to feel that way," says Tegan. "We're nobody's and we're everybody's. If you want us, we're there."