This Always Happens!

Just weeks after finishing up all the best of 2009 lists - for places like Popmatters and The Factual Opinion - I come across another 2009 release that would probably have shot to the top of my actual list if I had heard it in time. That release? Sainthood by Tegan and Sara.

I'd never heard them before, but I checked out the album with some Christmas money, based on a positive write-up of the band I'd read in SPIN. To put it mildly, I was blown away and listened to the album like twelve times in the space of a day and a half.



Am I a girl now? Seriously, I dunno. All I can say is that this is one of those rare rock and roll records that somehow manages to make you feel like a teenager again, if only for one deeply puzzled moment of wistful reflection - except it's not really teenage music, it's definitely a bit more earned and significantly less histrionic than most of what passes for teenage rock & roll these days. Grown-ups can write about heartbreak and desperation too, and although they may not look it these ladies are pushing 30. That freaks my mind.

If I could go back in time, this would be my pick for #1 on the Factual Opinion Best Songs list:



I don't really have anything too perceptive to add, except that if you like the rock and the roll, you really should seek this album out and give it a shot. Hell, I bet you spent more on Blackest Night tie-ins you didn't want just so you could get the purple and orange cock rings than you could find this disc for down at your local Best Buy.