Album Review: Stars - Set Yourself On Fire

Author: Andrew Sykes

Stars are yet another band to come out of the eclectic Canadian collective that spawned KC Accidental, Broken Social Scene and Metric, the basic premise being that loads of art-school musicians (Do Say Make Think members, for example) get together in random little groups and make deliberately different music from their 'home' bands. When these beard-stroking, arch post-rock kids go pop, the results are astonishing.

Stars is based around the "he said, she said" vocal interplay of the fantastically named Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan. You can consider them the most pop end of the collective; there's precious little in the way of wigouts, krautrock clicks or any of that crap. They aim to take over the genre founded by later Pavement and Stephen Malkmus - the wry, witty pop song, mixing experimentation with clever lyrics and hook-laden choruses.

Opener Your Ex-Lover Is Dead is a tounge-in-cheek, heart-in-mouth description of the end of a relationship, set against horns and Death Cab-esque guitar lines. The whole thing has a vague resemblance to Fairy Tale Of New York; it catalogues love gone sour in the same offbeat way. In fact, the whole record is about relationships being destroyed, falling apart, or reminisced over. Check out The Big Fight; gentle Rhodes piano and a slow, gentle jazz feel allow Torquil and Amy's call-and-response vocals about the mundane facts of a breakup room to breathe: "There are bills here for you / that's cos nothing is free."

Ageless Beauty is a wall of guitar noise, reminiscent of Broken Social Scene's Almost Crimes, which progresses slowly and predictably, Amy's soft, Belinda Butcher vocals floating ethereally over the top, before a surprising, offbeat flurry of hypermelodic guitar noise signals the huge chorus to come crashing in while she joyfully proclaims "We will always be alive!" My Bloody Valentine homage it may be, but it's a damn good one.

What I'm Trying To Say comes across like the Postal Service aping Superchunk; bleepy keyboards and syncopated basslines track a bittersweet tale of love and heavy drug use with yet another killer chorus: "I am trying to say / what I'm trying to say / without having to say / I love you". Cheesy is never far away when you're trying to chronicle romantic entanglements, but the clever wit and dead-on observations will make you laugh (or cry) it off. Special mention must go to The First Five Times for being the best song ever about the first five times you have sex with someone - it's achingly true, heartrendingly funny and just plain genius. A bouncy acoustic riff drives Torquil through his reminiscing, before a buzzing bassline and heavy drums take us to a much darker place: "And every day / it's changed since then", sing Amy and Torquil together, in gloriously sad harmonies.

I could talk for hours about how great this album is. Every song is a small slice of pop perfection in its own right; witness swelling horns and soft organs on Sleep Tonight, driving, bouncy basslines and eighties synths on the hopelessly upbeat paen to love Set Yourself On Fire, or the rush of Pavement guitars that precedes an ode to longlost schooldays and Friend's Reunited-style meetings, Reunion. "I had six too many drinks last night, yes / and that's why I made you stay" sings Torquil, like it's the most romantic sentiment ever.

You need to hear this record. Seriously. It's moving, at turns both funny and bleak, and it's full of more great melodies and clever lyrics than most bands manage in an entire career. You owe it to your ears, your heart, and that little gooey bit in the centre of your brain that loves great pop music.