''Sainthood'' is the sixth studio album by the Canadian indie pop duo

Tegan and Sara Tegan and Sara () are a Canadian indie pop duo formed in 1998 in Calgary, Alberta. The band is led by identical twin sisters, Tegan Rain Quin and Sara Keirsten Quin (born September 19, 1980). Both musicians are songwriters and multi-instrumentali ...

, released in the UK on October 26, 2009 and in the US on October 27, by

Sire Records Sire Records (formerly Sire Records Company) is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Records. History Beginnings The label was founded in 1966 as Sire Productions by Seymour Stein and Richard Gotteh ...

. The album was a shortlisted nominee for the

2010 Polaris Music Prize The 2010 edition of the Canadian Polaris Music Prize was presented on September 20, 2010.Leonard Cohen Leonard Norman Cohen (September 21, 1934November 7, 2016) was a Canadian songwriter, singer, poet, and novelist. Themes commonly explored throughout his work include faith and mortality, isolation and depression, betrayal and redemption, soc ...

lyric. The record also includes co-written songs from Tegan's side project with

Hunter Burgan Hunter Burgan (born May 14, 1976) is an American multi-instrumentalist. He is the second and current bassist of AFI (band), AFI. Biography Burgan grew up in Grass Valley, California. He is a vegan. Career Burgan was bassist in The Force w ...

, bassist of

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. The album is described by the band as such:

Tegan and Sara's sixth studio album – ''Sainthood'' – addresses secular themes of devotion, delusion, and exemplary behavior in the pursuit of love and relationships. Inspired by emotional longing and the quiet actions we hope may be noticed by the objects of our affection, ''Sainthood'' is about obsession with romantic ideals. In the service of relationships we practice being perfect. We practice our sainthood in the hope that we will be rewarded with adoration. As we are driven to become anything for someone else, we sometimes become martyrs for our cause. Love, like faith, can never be held in an individual's hands. But the story of a great love affair – especially one that is unrequited or has ended too soon – can be woven like scripture or a bedtime story. And so the themes of ''Sainthood'' are tied together by this simple title, borrowed, with great respect, from the lyrics of the Leonard Cohen song "Came So Far for Beauty": I practiced all my sainthood / I gave to one and all / But the rumours of my virtue / They moved her not at all.

Release

''Sainthood'' was released in the UK on October 26, 2009. The album was produced by

Death Cab for Cutie Death Cab for Cutie (commonly abbreviated to DCFC or Death Cab) is an American rock music, rock band formed in Bellingham, Washington, in 1997. Death Cab for Cutie's music has been classified as indie rock, indie pop, and alternative rock. The ...

guitarist

Chris Walla Christopher Ryan Walla (born November 2, 1975) is an American musician, record producer, and film music composer, best known for being a former guitarist and songwriter for the band Death Cab for Cutie. Musical career Early bands While at B ...

and was tracked at Sound City Studios in

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and Two Sticks Audio in

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during the summer of 2009. Tegan and Sara released the full album for online streaming on their

MySpace Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...

page on October 20, 2009. EE Storey, the band's artistic director, designed the album artwork. When speaking with Alter the Press! in November 2009, the band revealed that the second single to be lifted from ''Sainthood'' would be "Alligator".

Critical reception

The album was generally well received by critics, scoring 78 out of 100 from 17 reviews on review aggregator

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

.Sainthood reviews at Metacritic.com
Metacritic. Retrieved April 22, 2010. Their song "Hell" came in at number 99 on the Australian

Triple J Hottest 100, 2009 The 2009 Triple J's Hottest 100 Volume 17, was announced on January 26, 2010. It is the seventeenth countdown of the most popular songs of the year, as chosen by the listeners of Australian radio station Triple J. Voting commenced on Boxing ...

Commercial performance

In Canada, ''Sainthood'' debuted at number four on the

Canadian Albums Chart The ''Billboard'' Canadian Albums is the official record chart A record chart, in the music industry, also called a music chart, is a ranking of Sound recording and reproduction, recorded music according to certain criteria during a given ...

. The album was certified

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

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denoting sales of over 40,000 copies in Canada. In the United States, The album debuted at number 21 on the US ''Billboard'' 200, selling 22,665 copies in its first week.Hits Daily Double - US Top 50 Albums - BuzzJack Music Forum
BuzzJack. Retrieved December 8, 2009. As of December 2013, the album has sold 115,000 copies in the United States.

Track listing

Bonus tracks

Personnel

Howard Redekopp Howard Redekopp is a Canadian Juno Award-winning record producer, mixer, writer, musician, and recording engineer best known for his work with Tegan and Sara and La Gusana Ciega. Redekopp's production work has received two Grammy Award nominat ...

–

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stat ...

engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...

– production, mixing (tracks: 1, 7, 11) *

Dave Sardy David Stuart Sardy (born 1967), more commonly known as D. Sardy, is an American composer, musician, songwriter, and multiple Grammy winning record producer. He came to prominence as the leader of 1990s noise rock band Barkmarket before turning ...

– mixing (tracks: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13) *

Stephen Marcussen Stephen Marcussen is the founder and chief mastering engineer at Marcussen Mastering in Hollywood, California Hollywood, sometimes informally called Tinseltown, is a List of districts and neighborhoods in Los Angeles, neighborhood and distri ...

– mastering *

Andrew Maury Andrew Maury is an American mixing engineer and record producer based in Brooklyn, New York. Career Maury has worked with artists such as Lewis Del Mar, Lizzo, Madi Diaz, Victoria Canal, Petey USA, Vagabon, Shawn Mendes, Post Malone, Colony ...

–

Logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

operator * Adam Fuller – Sound City assistant * Jackson Long – Two Sticks assistant * Alec Gomez – assistance * Andy Brohard – engineering

Charts

Certifications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sainthood 2009 albums Sire Records albums Tegan and Sara albums Albums recorded at Sound City Studios