Stars, The Five Ghosts

Posted on 23rd Jul 10 by Ciara O Brien | 0

The Five Ghosts is the fifth full-length album from Canadian indie-pop veterans Stars, the album comes as a follow up to their 2007 release In Our Bedroom after the War. With this offering, Stars are challenging the work which has come before and taking everything up a notch, to create what will no doubt become the pedestal from which everything to come will be judged.

Stars, The Five Ghosts

Stars have always been known for their breathily catchy boy/girl melodies, with The Five Ghosts they stay true to this form, but also play on it, showing their ability to not only create up-beat and catchy, but also very smart music.

A major change that has come with this album is the idea of a ‘theme’. The entire album revolves around the notion of ‘haunting’. For a lesser group this idea of theme would present a challenge, and it would be almost inevitable for cheese to melt in, but for Stars it is a welcome challenge.

Rather than an album consisting of 11 ‘emo’ songs about ghosts, we are taken on a journey on which we will learn the multitudinous ways in which we can be ‘haunted’. Their true genius lies in the manner in which the album itself begins to haunt the listener.

The album opens amidst the fallen lovers of Dead Hearts, a track which sets the haunted mood which will stalk us through the rest of the album. Dead Hearts is the ideal album opener as it sets the bar for the new direction the group are taking. Rather than the indie-pop boy/girl conversational romance melodies which Stars are known for, Dead Hearts takes the vocals of Amy Millan and Torquil Campbell to a new level of theatricality. It is a track which took me off guard as we are thrown head-first into this maudlin breathlessness.

The second track Wasted Daylight takes the tempo and energy from Dead Hearts and explodes it, creating an upbeat and epic indie-pop anthem which is the perfect remedy for these dreary summer months we find ourselves in.

Undoubtedly the one reason that Stars have such musical staying power is their ability to filter tragedy through rose-tinted glasses. The Five Ghosts is hinged on the notion of being ‘haunted’ and yet the group have somehow evaded that aural no-man’s-land of being emo. We expect a song called I Died So I Could Haunt You to be infused with that tragically chic depression that has become mainstream, but what we get is a catchy and upbeat track, which may just be one of the most heartfelt and sweet songs to ever come from Stars.

The low points of the album are so few that they can barely be deemed low points. Certainly the tracks which do not heavily feature Millan on vocals are somewhat weaker than those in which her breathy voice floats on eggshells, but these tracks such as We Don’t Want Your Body are still effortlessly listenable and here Stars create their own brand of disco which hasn’t been seen before.

The first single Fixed is released on iTunes on July 23^rd and this infectiously quirky love song is the most polished track on the album and showcases the importance of layering in the kind of music which Stars create. Some may say their sound is like Lily Allen without the self-deprecation, but they are much more than that and musicians in their own right. With anxiety-ridden simplicity like Changes and heavy maudlin haunts like He Dreams He’s Awake to take you away into your own tiny universe, the only real problem I can see with this album is that we’ve to wait until August 8^th to get our grubby little mitts on it. When the last song fades out we feel such a weighty sense of bereavement that we are forced to push that little triangular button again.

You won’t be disappointed by this, the happiest séance you’ll ever attend.

Drop-s Rating: 9/10

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Tags: Amy Millan, Chris Seligman, Evan Cranley, In Our Bedroom After the War, lily allen, Patty McGee, Stars, Stars The Five Ghosts, The Five Ghosts, Torquil Campbell