Album Review: Stars “The Five Ghosts”
June has another hauntingly-titled release with Stars’ “The Five Ghosts”. “The Five Ghosts” is their fifth full-length album (if we don’t count the remix album “Do You Trust Your Friends?”) which was released worldwide June 22, 2010. Stars hardly seem like they need an introduction, with their last album “In Our Bedroom After the War” nominated for the Polaris Music Prize and their prior two albums “Set Yourself on Fire” and “Heart” both receiving Juno nominations for Alternative Album of the Year in 2005 and 2004, respectively.
The week prior to the release of “The Five Ghosts” was filled with a string of US tour dates where the band played the album in its entirety. The entire album was also made available for streaming from their website. Following its release, the band has several Canadian festival tour dates as well as a European tour. They’ll be touring the rest of Canada this fall.
The singles “Fixed” and “We Don’t Want Your Body” were released in advance of the album. It seems releasing a few singles prior to the album has helped to combat a complete leak of “The Five Ghosts”. The band tweeted, “a little more than a week from five ghosts and no leak!! thank you!! it will start streaming all over the place on tuesday…hope you like..” on June 12, 2010. Concerned with “In Our Bedroom After the War” leaking, the band made the album available for download two months before its street date. Pairing the advance singles with full album streaming seems to have combated the concern for a “The Five Ghosts” leak. The singles themselves are indie pop perfection, heavy on the 80s-sounding synth keyboards, revealing influences that include New Order.
Throughout their catalogue, Stars shine with emotional songs about relationship breakdown, often pairing upbeat instrumentation with haunting and morose lyrics. The back and forth lyrical banter between Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan emphasizes the dramatic nature of their music. “The Five Ghosts” does not stray too far from this formula. Though it veers somewhat from their previous work, with the added synth and lost string sections, it is still very much typical of Stars. ‘The Five Ghosts” included writing contributions from all five Stars members. Amy Millan’s description of “The Five Ghosts” as the “quintessential Stars” album is a truth.
“Dead Hearts”, an unsurprising ballad about heartbreak, opens “The Five Ghosts”. It slowly swells to crescendo and sets the tone for what’s to come. “I Died So I Could Haunt You” is definitely the album highlight, starting out quiet and building, adding danceable beats, basslines, and super synthy keys. I’ve yet to listen to this track and not dance. I feel it wouldn’t be out of place in a school dance scene on Degrassi Jr. High. The lyrics, “I want only to haunt you, but you’re never there” and, “I died so I could have you. I died so I could hold you” firmly place it within “The Five Ghosts” theme. The rest of the album sticks with the ubiquitous haunting moving between infectious upbeat pop and eerie electronic ballads.
The title track, “The Five Ghosts”, is featured on the deluxe edition of the album. It would have been better placed among the original 11 tracks, though I can’t specify which song I might omit to place it there. Its lyrics describe being happily haunted by five ghosts and the Torq-sung chorus, “Oh, what a beautiful day to try to die” manages to be strangely cheery and eerie. The deluxe edition also features songs with Stars vs. The Album Leaf, Montag, and Of Montreal.
