Tegan and Sara - Hey, I'm Just Like You (Album Review)
Tuesday, 08 October 2019
Written by Huw Baines
‘Hey, I’m Just Like You’ is about four songwriters: Tegan and Sara Quin as teenagers pouring angst, love and hope into scrappy alt-rock songs, and Tegan and Sara Quin in their late 30s—important LGBT voices in a traditionally unfriendly industry with immaculate and influential pop records stacking up in their personal archive.
A companion piece to their new memoir, High School, this record finds Tegan and Sara unearthing demos from their earliest years as musicians and filtering them through the synth-pop lens that they have employed with such success since embracing all things electronic on 2013’s majestic ‘Heartthrob’.
Perhaps necessarily given the source material, the album is far more guitar-heavy than their recent work. Recalling the emotive pop-rock of ‘So Jealous’ and ‘The Con’ at times, there are moments here, like the explosive I’ll Be Back Someday, that are capable of striking an alluringly nostalgic chord.
Essentially, Tegan and Sara are looking back, and the fans who watched as the style that initially sent the duo over the top evaporated are being allowed to do the same.
What is certain is that the younger Tegan and Sara were capable of building songs that tick all the boxes required by their pop classicist older selves. The production here is slick, naturally, and doubtless plenty of rough edges have been sanded clean, but the melodies and bleeding-heart lyrics of the originals shine through.
The title track is a prime example of this dynamic. It could comfortably have made its home on ‘Heartthrob’, but its lyrics have a searching nature redolent of adolescence. “I never feel invisible when you’re around,” becomes over time: “I always feel invincible when you're around.”
Perhaps the greatest compliment that could be paid to ‘Hey, I’m Just Like You’ is that it won’t stand out as a curio in Tegan and Sara’s latter day catalogue. Whatever it is you have turned to their music for in the past, you’ll find it here.
Tegan and Sara Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Sat November 16 2019 - BRIGHTON Theatre Royal
Sun November 17 2019 - LONDON O2 Shepherds Bush Empire
Tue November 19 2019 - MANCHESTER Albert Hall
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