The Five Ghosts, Stars

BEST OF 2010

The first two releases by Stars, Nightsongs and Heart, are lovely albums. Bits of shoe gazing, indie pop wearing its heart on its sleeve. They are the albums you fall in and out of love to. They are the albums with large, emotional concepts contained within lounging sound bites. They are lovely starts.

On Set Yourself on Fire, Stars finally achieved greatness. These bitter, aggresive, beautiful songs come at the listener full force. The songs never once back down. Throughout the entire album the listener is constantly pulled further and further into the strain of what may or may not be a threaded short story collection. This album is one of my top ten favorite albums of the last decade.

Stars followed up their masterpiece with In Our Bedroom After the War. This album could never live up to the previous. So I gave it little attention. Allowed it to die a quiet death weeks after its release. I know there are a couple lovely songs, but overall... just a follow up to an incredible album.

This time around, on The Five Ghosts, Stars have released a lovely album that should have been the follow up to Set Yourself on Fire. This album if filled with ghosts (as the title suggests). I imagine all those haunted, living souls from Set Yourself on Fire are now dead and haunting those they left behind. There is an emotional heaviness to much of the album. The lyrics on loss and death. Even the sound of the songs requires a few mournful pauses.

The song "I Died So I Could Haunt You" is perfect. How many of us haven't thought of those we'd return to if we had the choice to haunt? On "We Don't Want Your Body," the humor and attitude are perfect. "Changes" may be one of Stars greatest songs. And, "Opinion vs the Sun" just gathers into a beautiful storm of lyric and music.

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