Album Review Tegan and Sara - Crybaby

Tegan and Sara certainly haven’t rested on their laurels. In fact, since the release of their ninth album ‘Hey, I’m Just Like You’ - and accompanying memoir High School - back in 2019, they’ve signed up for a TV adaptation of the book, released an acoustic version of their 2004 record ‘So Jealous’, and finished up work on this tenth studio full-length; the latter admittedly being no mean feat in itself. In keeping with the duo’s attempts to continually evolve and experiment (‘Hey, I’m Just Like You’ revisited tracks they’d first written as teenagers), it’s with latest record ‘Crybaby’ that they go for a more maximalist approach. In almost complete contrast to the bare bones acoustics of ‘Still Jealous’, ‘Crybaby’ seems to want to give everything a go: here, the frantic shouts that introduce opener ‘I Can’t Grow Up’ and the sickly synthetic ‘Fucking Up What Matters’ sit alongside the sublime chorus of ‘Yellow’, and the quiet reflectiveness of ‘Faded Like A Feeling’. At times, their ambition really clicks into place (the euphoric bounce of ‘Smoking Weed Alone’, for example), but at others, it feels a bit muddled. Their ambition is undoubtedly to be applauded, but this one’s a bit of a mixed bag.