Idolator

Tegan and Sara's The Con is one of those albums from this year that I keep going back to; their transformation to new-wavey power duo has caused their songwriting to get stronger, and their hooks to get glued to the outer reaches of my brain more and more by the day. (If you can listen to "Back In Your Head" and not have its simple piano line Velcroed to your consciousness, you either never got "Chopsticks" stuck in your head or you're suffering from an earwax issue.) The plot for the title track's video seems like it was lifted from one of the Quin sisters' dream journals—an entry that, since it was marked by a shrink falling asleep/keeling over dead, no doubt resulted in more weird dreams/talk therapy—but the song's insistently sinuous, and it's definitely one of the highest points of an album that's full of them.

The Con - Tegan & Sara [YouTube]
Tegan and Sara [MySpace]

Tegan and Sara's forthcoming The Con leaked all over the Internet this weekend, proving that even a three-day holiday can't keep the kids from their Canadian power-pop. The Con is the duo's first record since 2004's fantasmo So Jealous, and the synth-heavy title track is bound to please anyone pining for the new-wave-revival revival: More »