Stars

Love and death have always been the twin engines of the popular song: the pursuit of love and the mourning of its passing; the havoc death wreaks upon love; love's survival in the aftermath of death; death as metaphor for the loss of one's identity to the consumptive power of love... Few bands of recent times have understood this as completely as Stars. And fewer bands still have so eloquently articulated, in words and in melodies, the seemingly countless ways love and death fill our days and rule our lives. Ten years after singer-lyricist Torquil Campbell and keyboardist Chris Seligman conceived of Stars in a decrepit New York apartment, one can listen back through the band's discography and hear dozens of songs that find new ways to contemplate these ancient, ageless subjects. To that end, The Five Ghosts, Stars' fifth full-length album, would seem to be business as usual. Indeed, a scan of its song titles "Dead Hearts," "I Died So I Could Haunt You," "The Last Song Ever Written" - would suggest as much. And yes, the band whose previous album, 2007's In Our Bedroom After the War, imagined romance in the shadow of the threat of apocalypse, are as fascinated as ever by the po... more...