Tegan and Sara are working through their collective dysfunction to bring us the follow-up to 2007’s The Con. Can you believe it’s been that long? (Probably not, since they’ve been touring on the album for an eternity.)
But Sainthood, their sixth studio album, is due out Oct. 27, and according to an interview with Stereogum, we can expect some big changes, musically. For starters, the album, produced again by Death Cab for Cutie‘s Chris Walla, will be the sisters’ first to include songs they wrote together – in the same city, at the same time.
On her experience collaborating with her sister for a week in New Orleans, Sara says:
I’ve never written a song when someone’s in the room or around or in the house. I’m a total weirdo! It really triggered the womb. I was like, “Get out of my space, seriously.” But I don’t blame the dysfunction of our sister relationship. I blame the dysfunction of us as individuals.
And while the album may be less intimate than their previous releases (according to Sara it, “really sounds like a band went into a room and played music” for the first time), rest assured that the theme has remained the same: Love.
“I wish I could say we had gone out on a real lyrical limb, but I don’t think we did,” Sara says, explaining that the name of the album refers to a Lenard Cohen lyric (“I practiced all my sainthood”), about unrequited love. (Cue the “awwws.”)
She continues:
With us, we pick the most challenging people to try to date and pursue and often don’t get them. So we wanted to focus on this idea of being saintly and winning people over.
Tegan and Sara having difficulties winning people over? Certainly, they don’t mean fans. They’re clearly doing OK in that regard.
Are you counting down the days to Sainthood?
