Arkells release new track, ‘Teenage Tears’ featuring Tegan and Sara, ahead of their seventh studio record, Blink Twice, coming September 23rd via Virgin Records.
Their melancholy music video, shot in Vancouver’s famed and curious Kingsgate Mall premiered yesterday, care of Consequence, who said, “Indeed, with vocal harmonies that sound at home on a Justin Vernon project and an earnest embrace of teenage melodrama à la “drivers license,” Arkells have somehow successfully crossed i,i and SOUR. Throw in contributions from the legendary Tegan and Sara and you have a recipe for a robust, unabashed song complete with sparse piano and swirling synths.“
“There’s a particular kind of intense emotional pain that reminds me of high school,” says Arkells frontman Max Kerman. “It’s not worn down, chronic kind of pain. It’s a sharp and confusing sad. This song is about how occasionally you can still feel that kind of sadness as an adult. We were trying to do something that might feel somewhere between Olivia Rodrigo and The National or Bon Iver.”
“Teenage Tears” is the 5th track to be released from Arkells’ forthcoming album Blink Twice, which has already launched tracks Past Life (ft. Cold War Kids), Dance With You (ft. Cœur de pirate, Aly & AJ), Human Being (ft Lights) & Reckoning.
“On Blink Twice, we wanted to include more voices on the record and we’re lucky enough to have a roster of pals who also happen to be our favourite musicians,” continues Kerman. “Tegan and Sara have long been an inspiration for us. They’ve made themselves the most formidable career by taking bold artistic chances. A few years ago I saw them tour their memoir called High School, about their upbringing in Calgary and discovering their sexuality and music as teenagers in the 90’s. It was part concert, part theatre, part book-reading. And it was perfect. They’re now turning that book into a TV show, and it comes out this fall.”
“Collaborating is something we love to do,” says Tegan Quin. “But these days our schedules are chaotic and so when Max reached out about collaborating on a song called Teenage Tears with Arkells, I prepared him for a no. The song felt melancholy and sweet and nostalgic in all the ways we love and Sara and I were won over after we heard it. We’ve been neck-deep in projects related to our own adolescence the last few years and so the song really hit.
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