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Tegan and Sara Unleash ‘Brave’ New Album ‘Heartthrob’

tegan and sara, heartthrob

Happy Tegan and Sara day! After much anticipation, SPIN’s January cover stars‘ seventh album, Heartthrob — one of our 50 Albums You Gotta Hear in 2013 — drops today.

As SPIN noted before, the Canadian duo are reaching for the pop charts with their newest full-length. “It was time to shake things up,” Tegan told SPIN last year. “We were determined to make our most accessible and poppiest album. Every day in the studio has been a big surprise.” Said Sara: “If we’re making our attempt at a big pop record, it only makes sense that we’ll be thinking about and listening to the pop records that made the biggest impression on us.”

If the piano balladry of “I Was a Fool” suggests anything, it’s that Kate Bush was in the 32-year-olds’ regular rotation. “We definitely took elements from her early records,” Tegan admitted. “All the weird keyboards and drum sounds, the interplay between instruments. We lifted a lot.” The Coachella stars also honed their synthpop chops — see the album’s opening track, “Closer.”

“[Heartthrob] is a brave album,” fun. guitarist Jack Antonoff, a friend of the band, says in SPIN’s current cover story, “No Fear of Heights: Tegan and Sara Aim for the Top.” He continued, saying, “There is great pressure for artists to draw big lines between what is pop and what is alternative or indie and Heartthrob blurs those lines. The last thing the world needs is another play-it-safe indie album.”

“On our first day in the studio,” Tegan said during a heart-to-heart with SPIN, “[Producer] Greg Kurstin spun around in his chair and said, ‘I’m going to take each song to the edge. And then pull back a bit.”’ She added, “And I thought, ‘Nah, just toss it over the edge.’ We decided to go for it.”

Now, Heartthrob is finally here. Stream it over at Tegan and Sara’s website and be sure to flip through our recent photo gallery, “Double Exposure: Outtakes From Tegan and Sara’s SPIN Cover Shoot.”