From The Vault: Stars Set Yourself On Fire

"When there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire..." or you could just buy this album instead

The quote mentioned above is spoken eerily (oddly enough by vocalist Toquil Campbell's father) in the opening seconds of the album before delving into the song "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead," giving you a pretty good idea of what you're in for. Yes, it's a semi-depressing subject (most of the topics on this album are), but they're also equally powerful and deeply philosophical, and that's what makes this most recent release from the Montreal band so good. Take one listen to the incredibly rich title song and you'll see what I mean. Each song and lyric is so well done that you can almost see that the group put detailed thought into every spoken word, as truly nothing is wasted. Despite what it seems, the pace of this album is by no means slow, as the band rocks out on tracks such as "Ageless Beauty" (which sounds a bit like My Bloody Valentine), and also implements a number of pop and theatrical characteristics on such songs as "Reunion," "One More Night" and "Soft Revolution." The great thing about each and every song on this album is the outstanding development of the storyline that is found within each of them to the point that you can easily picture the actions in your head. Using "Reunion" as an example, the lyrics begin with "in the year of my decline/sucking freezies in the rain/driving twisted to the suburbs/and then driving back again" while on the surface the words appear a bit simplistic, within the meaning of the song they can be seen as very poetic and powerful. On tracks like "The Big Fight" Stars show their more soulful tendencies that are more overt on their previous albums, same goes for the 80's electronica found on "He Lied About Death." For those of you who aren't familiar with Stars, do yourself a favor and get out and at least listen to Set Yourself On Fire as you'll surely be in for a very different and rewarding listening experience no matter what genre or type of music you generally listen to, there's something for everyone here.

★★★★★