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Jan 28, 2013While longtime fans might be a bit perplexed by the shift, they will find plenty of familiar ground to cling to as the record plays and the smartly written and tear-filled songs follow one after another.
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Jan 28, 2013The Roxette and Cyndi Lauper-referencing, soaring keyboard pop of Heartthrob is a welcome stylistic reconciliation, if one that sacrifices their sonic weirdness.
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UncutJan 17, 2013They sacrifice a bit of their identity in the trade-off [to be more pop.][Feb 2013, p.80]
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Jan 30, 2013The girls can be proud that their efforts have produced the best record of their career, and quite possibly, one of the best records of the year.
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MojoFeb 6, 2013It's as commercial as it gets but works purely because the Quin girls have fashioned with good tunes that come replete with more than enough hooks to keep everyone happy. [Mar 2013, p.88]
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Q MagazineFeb 8, 2013By the end, it feels as if Tegan And Sara need to sharpen their edge before they lose their point completely. [Mar 2013, p.110]
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Jan 17, 2013Their seventh album is a veritable bouncy castle of lush, up-to-the-minute indie synth-pop and blown-out radio choruses, less fussy and more whee than anything they've done.
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Feb 8, 2013Like many victims of the cut-throat mainstream pop game it wants to join, Heartthrob falls down more often than not because the songs capture the immaturity of its target audience a little too well.
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Jan 17, 2013The across-the-board quality of Heartthrob earns it the merit as yet another high point in the Tegan and Sara discography. [Jan-Feb 2013, p.89]
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Jan 29, 2013Sure, the LP falters when it casts its net too wide, particularly on the Roxette-indebted "Love They Say" and Twin Shadow outtake "Shock to Your System," but those moments are few.
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Feb 6, 2013They may have churned their sound into something new, but their heart and their character is still very much in the right place, and that’s what makes Heartthrob more than just a brilliant pop album, it’s unarguably a brilliant Tegan & Sara album and it’s very, very close to being perfect.
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Jan 29, 2013In the end, in spite of the fancier veneer, Tegan And Sara remain honest chroniclers of romantic minutiae.
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Jan 29, 2013Liberated from the stylistic baggage of their previous albums, the Quins deliver something close to pure intoxicating emotion, granting themselves the freedom to go anywhere they want next time.
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Jan 29, 2013The music is possibly the duo's best, though it's a little uniform compared to their competing peak The Con, which had shrewder tunelets and weirder sonics.
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Jan 30, 2013Tegan and Sara have known this for a long time, but with Heartthrob, they fill the canyon with great meaning and melodies--enough to Flashdance from one end to the other and back again.
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Entertainment WeeklyFeb 1, 2013Beneath all that gloss, though, Heartthrob has an underlying toughness and a clear-eyed take on heartbreak. [8 Feb 2013, p.75]
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Jan 17, 2013The duo's strong suit has always been songwriting, and this still comes through on Heartthrob. [Feb 2013, p.93]
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Jan 31, 2013The eerie voice blend still sends the occasional chill up the spine, and their songwriting continues to capture the painful earnestness of youth, but it all feels a bit staged.
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Mar 4, 2013This was an interesting direction to go in and it definitely has a lot of potential. But the duo will need to do a better job balancing the synths and the songs to succeed.
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Feb 11, 2013The tunes and recriminations seem to cut deeper than ever on their seventh album.
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Feb 4, 2013As crushing as some of these songs are, Heartthrob never lets you feel the weight, but prefers to revel in emotions good or bad, most often while sweating everything out under a crystalline disco ball.
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MagnetFeb 11, 2013It's bright and shiny and perky.... But it also risks being faceless--it's Tegan and Sara's least personable, most superficial record. [No. 95, p.60]
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Jan 29, 2013The songs are less oblique than their last couple of albums, almost to a fault.... But their lyrical theme of being embattled with themselves remains.
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Mar 13, 2013Beginning with the naughty promise of "Closer," which voices a transgressive assertion of female sexual desire, the duo rapidly devolves into a string of whiny mash notes accentuated by tinny, synth-heavy instrumentation.
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Jan 28, 2013The fact that this album doesn't fit as neatly with their most popular album, The Con, is a good sign--the girls aren't yet ready to rest on their laurels, and instead continue to push their music dynamically forward.
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Jan 29, 2013If Heartthrob presents a believably irregular vision of how love happens, the album does it with an immediacy and a directness that feels new for these Canadian twin sisters.
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Feb 8, 2013Dealing frankly with love, rejection, frustration, self-doubt and self-acceptance, almost every one of the 10 tracks is catchy and distinctive enough to become a hit.
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Jan 29, 2013Even those who felt lukewarm to Tegan and Sara's past few efforts should fully embrace their dazzling pop rebirth on Heartthrob, one of the best LPs of this young year.
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Jan 22, 2013The twin sisters have pushed themselves creatively and musically, creating something truly special.
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Feb 19, 2013They have now cracked out the synths, ramped up the drum machines, and found their calling in giddy, lovelorn electro-pop.
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Feb 11, 2013For now, call it a calculated risk that mostly works.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 74 out of 91
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Mixed: 9 out of 91
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Negative: 8 out of 91
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Jan 29, 2013
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Feb 3, 2013
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Feb 2, 2013