Stars - Set Yourself on Fire

With 2005's Set Yourself on Fire, the Montreal ensemble Stars grows new blooms from out of its sturdy electro-pop stem. This is largely thanks to the addition of a real drummer (Pat McGee), who opens things up for the band's third full-length album. The raised hand on the cover might lead one to take this record for an angry political outcry, but if so, it's the sort one makes while falling in love at a college rally. Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan trade vocal duties and combine on rich harmonies over alt-rock frameworks painted with thick electronic pulses, sweeping horn and string sections, bass, cello, harmonica, and electric guitar. It's a combination big enough to encompass both the melodramatic grandeur of teenage emotions and the awareness that such feelings are unreliable. Like their Canadian brethren Broken Social Scene (bassist Evan Cranley plays in both bands), Stars freely collapses pop music's pigeonholes into one rich, new-yet-familiar sound. "He Lied About Death" takes a few passing jabs at George W. Bush, but this band knows their best contribution to the cause is crafting epic love songs for the people to cry and dance to, and they contribute very well with Set Yourself on Fire.