Tegan & Sara - So Jealous

Genre rock Publisher Sanctuary Records External Links Official Site Sanctuary Records

Tegan and Sara have crafted another tuneful guitar-pop album of the type that Canadians, represented by the likes of Sloan and The New Pornographers, seems so adept at producing. So Jealous is a relationship album, not a new-love or break-up album, but one about companionship, friendship, and the difficulties of making a relationship work for those who may be young, in love, and unsure.

On the leadoff track, "You Wouldn't Like Me," the lyrics go "I feel like / I wouldn't like me if I met me," and the multi-tracked vocals that lend themselves to the image of the singer facing herself are made doubly effective by the fact that Tegan and Sara are identical twins. Actually, I never know which one sings what, and since the liner notes credit neither with vocals for specific songs, I don't know quite what to do in terms of attributing credit to them. I could just say "she" and reduce them to one person, but instead I'll go with the can't-be-wrong "Tegan or Sara." They both have slightly nasally voices, but one likes to stretch to the upper reaches of her alto range and the other is happy to mine the bottom of that register.

You've heard palm-muted electric guitars chugging along and acoustic chords strummed gently before. The lyrics and their delivery, not the instruments, hold the key to this album. The songs are addressed in the second-person to an unidentified, generic, quiet soul, and lots of them invoke domestic situations, like falling asleep or waking up next to the beloved, making the addressee more important as a companion or friend than a lover. The most physical the lyrics get is on "I know I know I know" when Tegan or Sara sings "Stick your hands inside of my pockets / Keep them warm while I'm still here," which later becomes "Stick your heart inside of my chest," to make it perfectly clear. A selfish streak runs through the songs, as it does through most young loves, as when T or S sings "Look me in the eye and promise me no love is like our love" on "Where Does The Good Go," and "This love isn't good unless it's me and you" on "I know I know I know." A song is even titled "I Won't Be Left," though it's as much a promise by the singer as it is a demand.

"I Bet It Stung," alternately taunts, begs, commands, and empathizes, just like the argument the back-and-forth between the distorted vocals and heavy guitar suggest. In "Walking With A Ghost," Tegan or Sara declares "You're out of my mind" so often we know it can't be true. Musically, the album peaks with the excellent title track. "So Jealous" is the keystone in the album's arch; it swings from a synthy dirge ("I don't want to be / part of the problem") to a desperate guitar scream ("I get so jealous / I can't even work") to introspective acoustic downstrokes ("There I am in the morning / I don't like what I see") as a confused lover might swing between desperation, self-loathing, and clear-eyed realism. "We Didn't Do It" is a misstep, a plodding song that repeatedly declares they didn't do it "for the money" while leaving open the question of what they did--Form a band? Invest in a mutual fund? "Fix You Up" dries the tears that have been spilled earlier with its jaunty sing-along chorus "There's not a lot for you to give if you're giving in" and the realization that "What I wanted most was to get myself figured out." One of the catchiest lines on the album appears on the last track "I Can't Take It;" the only problem with "I've got nowhere to go / I've got no! where! to go!" is the sense that something's missing, that Tegan (or Sara) doesn't go far enough: open up those pipes like Neko Case!

Musically, So Jealous isn't breaking any ground, but that's OK, because it's the unified, coherent take on a relationship not often found in rock that's interesting, and the music exists to package it. It makes you want to believe it was written as a Valentine or anniversary present, or maybe just a random I-love-you gift, for the significant others of the songwriters that happened to be leaked to the world at large.