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Further anticipating the hopeful notion that there's a shoegazing revival lurking just around the corner, Stars make music that drips that same dreamy combination of warm fuzzy guitars and gorgeous vocal melodicism. Harking back to the days when bands like My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Ride and Swervedriver where the latest word in indie chic and when delicate soundscapes meant more than getting your records played on daytime radio - SET YOURSELF ON FIRE is an album that sees Canadian indie rockers Stars continuing that lineage and delivering a work that echoes last years similar gorgeous effort from Joy Zipper.
Most of the songs here are based around the sublime vocal interplay between singers Torquil Campbell and Amy Milan, both bringing an aching and lovelorn quality to the songs when needed. Its the fact that they can also launch into bubblegum pop when the occasion rises that lends Stars that extra special ingredient though, these are songs that find that beautiful balance between pathos and throwaway pop.
Maybe this records defining moment and greatest advertisement, AGELESS BEAUTY is a song that leaps out and grabs you - wrapping its silky smooth melodies around your entire body and cacooning you in delicate layers of warm fuzzy guitar noise. Pitching its sound at the perfect intersection where My Bloody Valentine meets Slowdive, if you hear a more gorgeous example of delicate pop music all year then you'll be very lucky indeed.
Whilst maybe a tough act to follow, the rest of the album doesn't disappoint one little bit - REUNION finds Stars dipping their toes in the same delicate waters, Torquil Campbell's wounded vocals weaving sublime melodies amidst the droning guitar work. SLEEP TONIGHT resurrects that off kilter guitar abuse that My Bloody Valentine used to such great effect all over their Loveless album, those dissonant soundwaves that appear like whales mating and give you a woozy feeling of otherworldly radiance - beautiful, strange and beguiling.
Elsewhere, you'll find pretty love songs built around gentle cello swells, modest guitar arrangements and sweeping orchestral mini epics a plenty.
With the sad demise of The Delgados a while back, it seems that Stars are the natural successors to that vacated indie throne - working in the same musical playground of pretty boy/girl melodies, playful guitar dissonance and wounded love songs.
SET YOURSELF ON FIRE is a beguiling and lovestruck indie rock record, a sublime blend of delicate songs and warm fuzzy guitar drones. Stars have delivered a record thats up there with other recent works of genius like Joy Zippers' American Whip and The Arcade Fires' Funeral - lets just hope that shoegazing revival isn't too much further away.

Stars are four young people living in the world, and they are trying to save us from our mundane and complacent fears. They are soft-revolutionaries and music is their rallying cry. When lost for words, one writer said the only way to describe Stars is "beautiful hope". Their music has been described as "breathtakingly effervescent" and they have been called the kind of band that "blue lights and fog machines are made for". Stars' music has an otherworldly blissfulness and a sophisticated epicurean cool. To Stars, art is the way to change the world. It is sincere and heartfelt. No pretences, but filled with desperation and longing. They make music that musicians love. Their fans include Momus, The Divine Comedy, Saint Etienne, K-OS and Alan Moulder. Somewhere dancing between all of these designations is Stars' Heart.
Stars debut L.P Nightsongs was a pristine prelude. It was called "one of the most thoroughly listenable albums in pop music history" and it rated highly on critics' top ten lists throughout North America. It was a definitive pop classic, recalling the best of Prefab Sprout, Sainte Etienne and New Order. Their second release, The Comeback E.P marked the band's departure from New York to Montreal. The Comeback is filled with more hooks and sugary dance-ability. It was the beginning of the band's departure away from pastiche and towards a unique musical vision. With the Heart L.P, the longing becomes more tangible and more intrinsic. Stars have taken us from lonely roof-tops to steamy bedrooms and candlelight fantasies in the world's sexiest cities. With lyrics like "You get back on the latest flight from paradise, I found out from a note taped to the door, I think I saw your airplane in the sky tonight, through my window lying on the kitchen floor ", Stars tell the world that they are in love and that they are not afraid to sing.
Making the album was a painstaking experience. It was many sleepless nights in a bedroom studio with only the ventilation of a rickety old fan propped in the corner. Whatever Stars did, it worked. So much so that acclaimed British producer Ian Catt (Sainte Etienne, Trembling Blue Stars) enthusiastically volunteered to mix 3 songs. The rest of the album was mixed by hip Canadian producer Dave Hodge (Brand Van 3000, Wu-Tang Clan). The result is an unmistakeable work of art, a pop music masterpiece. Make no mistake, Heart will be remembered because the songs are so beautiful, and to Stars beauty is what will save us.
TAKEN FROM WWW.ARTS-CRAFTS.CA/STARS/

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