(Vagrant/Shock)

Shiny indie synth-pop aplenty

For their fifth album The Five Ghosts, Canadian indie synthsters Stars (also part of the large Broken Social Scene family) present a sonically rich illustration of how their billowy snowstorm guitars so seamlessly blend with boy-girl harmonies and synth-pop hooks. This is illustrated, albeit in a restrained fashion, by low-key but dramatic opener Dead Hearts and the hypnotic Wasted Daylight. They even do gloomy, gothic majesty rather well, in the brooding He Dreams He’s Awake which rides a big droning synth melody like The Cure’s A Strange Day before the song appears to cave in on itself as cavernous drums crash the grey introspection. This is immediately followed by the sugar-sweet electro-doowop of Changes, like an indie take on Madonna’s True Blue (if they’d added fuzzed-up guitars, it’d resemble The Jesus And Mary Chain). The Five Ghosts is a rather excellent pop record because it understands how to effectively balance the melancholy and the dancefloor. As well as excellent blends of shimmering synth textures and crystalline indie pop, the album makes superb use of Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan’s sweet-but-not-overly-saccharine boy-girl vocals. Further highlights include the euphoric Pet Shop Boys chords of Fixed, the OMD-meets-Wham! squiggles of We Don’t Want Your Body and the clean-aired chill of gorgeous closing ballad Winter Bones.  For all the ‘80s sources you’ll discover, fortunately they are used to elegantly enhance the tunes rather than as gratuitously retro “window-dressing”. 

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MATT THROWER

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