Even good ingredients can't make good broth if too many cooks are involved.
Tegan and Sara are somewhat stalwarts of the Canadian indie scenes. Active for the past few years, they specialise in musically simply but lyrically clever songs about love and life and all of the other things that you would expect a singing/songwriting duo to write about. Critically, their previous albums, though mostly good, sound more or less the same. Hammering on jangly guitars, heavy bass and busy drums complimented or hampered all of their previous releases. There was maturity in the songwriting and the themes that were written about, but as far as musical development, they were virtually static.
“The Con” sees the end of this stationary status and sees more or less the first palpable chance in direction in the duo's career. There is a dominant use of synthesizers all over the songs and there is even the odd sampled drum loop in the mix. This is a welcome step and something which, love or hate them, was both needed and overdue to inject some new life into a well overplayed sound. However, rather than be a triumph of great songwriting meeting interesting arrangements and production, it is somewhat of a mess.
Let's get this out of the way • there is nothing whatsoever wrong with the quality of the performances of Tegan and Sara themselves on “The Con”. The songwriting remains at the high quality that has ensured the success and fanbase that they have achieved thus far. The opening track, “I Was Married” is a beautifully crafted piece of work; slow, thoughtful and sensitively delivered. No, where the problem with “The Con” lies is squarely with the production. While the new electronica direction suits the more simplistic tracks well, it makes the rest of the songs sound like a mess. Tegan and Sara have always been dogged somewhat by very busy sounding accompaniments to their basic guitars and vocals, but when kept simple this works quite well. Add in two samples and a vocal sample and it simply becomes hard to take it all in.
The problem is most evident on the title track. The verses are good enough and the chorus is decent, but it almost appears that the producer was given a list of things that was wrong with their previous albums and set to right them on “The Con”. There are several moments during the title track when you don't feel like you are listening to an accomplished musical act after several months in the studio, but to a band in a youth club who have lost the gel of tight play and are gradually playing faster and faster trying to keep up. It's a headache. This problem is littered throughout the album. “Floorplan” sells its pleasantness by over saturating itself, “Nineteen” is way to busy and “Are You Ten Years Ago” is just a noise.
However, there are moments of greatness. “Soil Soil” takes us back to the basics of the opener and gives the listener time to take in (or forget about) what came before it and delivers a light and fluffy piece of sugar coated cloud. “Burn Down Your Life” returns to the T&S of old with memorable melody and simplicity and “Call It Off” is a gorgeous and well paced song. But, ultimately, its too little to rescue the album. Maybe its something that should be best treated as a dry run for future releases, where the backing musicians will be given diazepam before picking up their instruments and the producer will look more at what they have than what they haven't. But as it stands, “The Con” is a disappointment at best and a failure at worst. One for the fans, yes, but for the newcomers, Tegan and Sara can, and have, done much better than this.