Back in July, I was fortunate enough to attend the Hollywood Bowl concert with lineups including Death Cab For Cutie, The New Pornographers, and lastly, Tegan and Sara. Tegan and Sara are 30 year old songwriting Canadian duo from Calgary. Their 2004 breakthrough album, So Jealous established them as an indie force to reckon with. They have since become omnipresent in pop culture, thanks to several TV Shows, most notably Grey's Anatomy which featured seven of their songs. Their latest album, Sainthood is definitely a step away from their 2007's admirable The Con. It has a more electronic feel to it, but reminiscent of their earlier albums. Now with their sixth album, Tegan and Sara have become more mature and balanced with music more structured and lyrics more understanding. It seems that Tegan writes about unrequited love ("The Cure", "The Ocean") while Sara writes about being in love ("Arrow", "Sentimental Tune"). But that's really beside the point. Tegan and Sara have a way of writing in the teenage perspective and making melancholy beautiful. Their first single, "Hell" (co-written by a member of AFI) is a danceable heavy loaded rock song. "The Cure" is Tegan's best song and is clearly an influence of The Cure's "Lovesong". "Northshore" is two minutes of explosive strummed out guitar freak out that aims to please with bitter rants of "Don't!", which Tegan declares, "There's something so sick about this/ My misery is so addictive." Sara's best song would be "Alligator", with a sound similar to early Madonna, but music jazzy and light accompanied with cutesy piano. Tegan reveals in "The Ocean", "Well I know what I want, and what I want's right here with you." With lyrics like these, they're destined to become headlines for Myspace. The album closer, "Sentimental Tune" and "Someday" are standout tracks. "Sentimental Tune" is Sara's second best song. Sara claims, "You hate the tenderhearted torch song/ You catch a flame to my sentiment, my sentimental tune (oh!)." It's the kind of song that girls will adore. "Someday" is possibly about Proposition 8, due to the twin's sexuality. But nevertheless, the song is about speaking and standing up for yourself. Tegan and a backup chorus give shout outs to the listeners to "Speak Up!/ Move Up!/ Reach Out!". Sainthood is not a perfect album ("Paperback Head" is my least favorite) but it is more stable and textured that instead, it's a good album with remarkably good songs. Along with Metric's Fantasies and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' It's Blitz!, Tegan and Sara prove to be another girl band of 2009 with a notable album. In the song "Someday", Tegan insists she, "might do something I'd be proud of someday/ Mark my words, I might be something someday." Either I'm waiting that someday or that someday is now. Needless to say, Sainthood deserves to be in the winbin. A twitter reference, mind you.