CD Reviews

Stars

In Our Bedrrom After the War | Arts + Crafts

By MIKAEL WOOD | October 15, 2007

2.0 Stars

This brainy Montreal five-piece broke out of the Canadian indie-rock pack a few years back with Set Yourself on Fire, a witty synth-pop send-up of whiny relationship albums that nevertheless made for a pretty great whiny relationship album. Most of the chatter surrounding In Our Bedroom After the War, Stars’ fourth full-length, has focused not on the band’s new songs but on their decision to sell the album as a download several months ahead of its release on CD. And there’s a reason for that: though it features some very handsome soundscaping and a top-shelf title in “Bitches in Tokyo,” Bedroom is a much duller affair than Set Yourself on Fire, with fewer jokes, fewer hooks, and a whole lot more of the sort of mid-tempo piano mush you wouldn’t tolerate from a Celine Dion. The valiant attempt that singers Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan are making to bring a sense of theater — and a love of Pet Shop Boys — to indie rock still places them in the scene’s upper echelons. But this is something of a letdown.

Stars | Berklee Performance Center, 136 Mass Ave, Boston | October 19 | 617.747.2261

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