The best Canadian import since Wayne Gretzky, twin sister duo Tegan and Sara have built a fan base by combining indie pop sensibility and a dash of punk rock aesthetic.

Their latest effort, Sainthood, is a much more mellow and balanced album then its predecessor, The Con. There’s not a single bad on the record, the overproduction that ravaged The Con is thankfully gone, and the sisters incorporate electronic sounds more naturally than ever before. Yet, something’s missing.

Sainthood’s shortcomings stem from the upsetting lack of the group’s signature brand of emotional fragility. As a result, the handful of knock-your-socks-off good songs that have been a staple of their previous records are nowhere to be found. The only track that is immediately gripping is the straightforward, Chuck Taylor-stomping rocker “Hell,” which sounds like Tegan and Sara doing an Good Mourning-era Alkaline Trio song (aka awesome).

Instead of the killer standout tracks, the album is strewn with songs that do nothing wrong, but also only do a thing or two very well. “Arrow” starts of the album with some sharp lyrical imagery, “Northshore” bubbles with a frenetic blitz of loose guitars, and “The Cure” has an undeniable flow that is so stylistically right for the duo it’s astonishing they hadn’t hit tapped it before.
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