Montreal's Stars Set to Shine in Athens

Bright Melodies and Dark Themes Inspire Stars' Latest Work

originally published March 19, 2008

"This is where the magic happens." That's what any celebrity on MTV's "Cribs" will tell you as their guided tour enters the bedroom. To these famous faces, the bedroom is all tongue-and-cheek insinuation, but ask Montreal's Stars, and they'll tell you about a real kind of magic that lies within such intimate quarters.

"To me [the bedroom] is a redemptive thing," says Stars singer Torquil Campbell, "because I think that the bedroom is one of the few things that every culture shares… It's somewhere we all go to heal. Even if it's a very humble place, it's the one place we go and at least try to achieve a sense of safety, and we let ourselves rest, and we hope that when we wake up the next day things will be different."

This is the symbolism behind Stars' latest record title In Our Bedroom After the War. The "war," Campbell explains, can represent any struggle, whether it's international conflict or personal strife.

"All wars are the same, ultimately," he says. "They're all a waste of time, whether it's a war with your lover or a war in the Middle East. They all leave you weaker, sadder, and with a lot of apologizing to do. Either way there are a lot of pieces to pick up and wounds to be healed."

The peace and solitude found within the bedroom, then, speaks to a sense of salvation that follows the resolution of such a conflict. It is a theme that runs through many of Stars' records - a feeling of hope amid darkness. This dichotomy has fascinated Campbell and the rest of the band throughout their collective career. It's something Stars have tried to capture for many years, and Campbell feels they finally got it just right.

"The goals were to make a record that was sort of a culmination of musical and production ideas that we'd had on previous records, but we were never able to execute the way we wanted to. For the first time [on In Our Bedroom], we had some money and we had some time."

They also had a very clear artistic vision.

"We were very inspired on a sonic level by bands like Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac and Hall and Oates … that kind of production style of the late-'70s and early-'80s - very dry and very closed and very smooth. But those bands, in terms of the content of what they were singing about, tended to be very dark, and I think we were interested in that combination of very digestible, slick music with imagery and lyrics that were a great deal darker than might be revealed immediately."

To that end, Stars have flawlessly succeeded. In Our Bedroom After the War manages to feel perfectly polished without losing any depth of emotion. As Campbell exchanges vocal duties with Amy Millan, their voices ring with crisp, clean beauty and eloquence. Their message seems simple because it's so precisely focused, yet it's an album that begs for analysis - for absorption. Within the packaging, the lyrics to each song are displayed on individual, loose sheets, like lullaby flash-cards to be studied, understood and shared.

Although Millan and Campbell's voices have always been the most prominent instruments in the Stars' sound, guitarist/bassist Evan Cranley and keyboardist Chris Seligman are the primary songwriters behind the tunes. On the DVD documentary that accompanies In Our Bedroom, the band discusses at length the perfectionism that obsesses Seligman and Cranley's creativity. It is that astute attention to detail that surely marks the record's seamless construction and clarity.

Also showcased on the DVD is the strength of Stars' live show. The cinematic tone of their music naturally lends itself to a moving, theatrical performance. Stars seem to cast the same spell of dark mysticism that Stevie Nicks once wielded. For Campbell, a sense of theatrics comes naturally given his background in acting.

"I am irresistibly drawn to theatricality," he says, "to action, to reaching out. Actors are, by virtue of the job they have, very open people, people-pleasers, and they want to connect very deeply with others. I think that instinct is still very much present in me. I still feel like I have to fight for people's attention."

Judging by Stars' rigorous tour schedule which takes them halfway around the world and back in just a couple months, it seems the whole band shares that commitment.

Michelle Gilzenrat

WHO: Stars WHEN: Saturday, March 22 WHERE: Georgia Theatre HOW MUCH: $15