Album Review: Set Yourself On Fire by Stars

The artwork for Stars' Set Yourself on Fire is eye-catching and dramatic, like a protest painting or Keith Haring subway drawing. And that's before you find the inside shot of a woman in a ski mask and little else, contemplating a flaming hand torch. The art direction's boldness complements the maturity in Stars' music, where nothing's just indie pop and string arrangements sound as perfect as the keyboards.

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This third album from the Canadian five-piece is a rich, multi-layered thing of beauty - but it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. "When there's nothing else to burn, you have to set yourself on fire," a voice of doom instructs; it is the perfect introduction to these tales of lost, broken and abandoned love. Brief thrills and murdered passions turn glossy in a warm glow of harmonies and a cascade of hard synths and feathery strings.

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Stars are Romantics. Unabashedly. Like a musical equivalent to the films of Richard Linklater, or the novels of someone I wouldn’t want to read. Their last record, Heart, kicked off with each member personally offering up his or her heart. Set Yourself on Fire starts in similar fashion, but it.

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