BSH Saturday Music Club: Set Yourself On Fire

Stars – Set Yourself On Fire

Jason: Stars celebrate the 20th anniversary of this album this fall with another trek on both North American coasts along with a handful of Canadian dates. The Montreal/Toronto group crafted this nearly flawless album, their third, when Montreal was bursting at the seams with indie pop bands led by Arcade Fire. And while Arcade Fire set themselves on fire with their lead singer accused of sexual misconduct by a handful of women, Stars have prospered along with a critically-acclaimed career thanks partially to this indie pop classic.

The opening moments of \"Your Ex-Lover Is Dead\" sounds like it\'ll be a string-laced, orchestral pop record, but the dual approach thanks to singers Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan builds up the nugget perfectly. Stars can also do joyful and maudlin almost simultaneously as the adventurous title track drops a beautifully haunting lyric like \"20 years of sleep before we sleep forever\" in the song\'s middle. The group shines on the cavity-inducing, summer-driving romp that is \"Ageless Beauty\" as Millan and company deliver synth-pop gold.

Part of the allure is differences in not just the vocals from Campbell and Millan but the mood each song takes on depending on who is steering things along. The pointed and occasionally caustic reflections Campbell has about high school on \"Reunion\" (\"They hated us with everything they had/And we hated them in kind\") perfectly complements the she/he viewpoints the duo give on the groove-tinged \"One More Night\" (\"When she\'s breaking his heart she still fucks like a tease\"). Then there\'s the up-tempo romp \"Soft Revolution\" that brings to mind The New Pornographers or Scotland\'s Belle and Sebastian.

Set Yourself On Fire has been one of those staples alongside The National\'s Trouble Will Find Me (it\'s their best, I don\'t care what Mr. O\'Connor says) and The Twilight Singers\' Blackberry Belle I\'ve listened to a ridiculous amount (not to mention dozens of others that came decades before those). But it was also one of those albums that you relied on to get one through the hell that was the pandemic. What some may see as throwaway lines like \"Live through this and you won\'t look back\" from the opening song or \"January, February, March, April, May I\'m alive\" on the final track \"Calendar Girl\" take on new meaning when the grim reaper was on damn near every street corner.

Having seen them too many times to count (including being the last show I saw in Toronto after 20 years before heading to the Maritimes), listened to this album and others like The North and There Is No Love In Fluorescent Light in the dozens if not hundreds (and having interviewed them on a handful of occasions) Stars could be an acquired taste. But if into them you\'ll stick with them.

Joe D : “When there’s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.” *cue strings* God, I love this album–and I’m so excited to see the anniversary tour when it stops in Philly in September. Stars came about at the dawn of the orchestral indie/chamber pop craze of the aughts that saw the aforementioned Arcade Fire reach indie stardom, but also set the stage for bands like Ra Ra Riot, Dirty Projectors, and a host of others. Stars have had a long, productive career, but nothing caught on quite like Set Yourself On Fire . What gives the album such staying power for me is the off-kilter, unexpected detours the band often takes musically: the synth arpeggios and twinkling runs of the title track, the funky breakdown outro of “The Big Fight,” and the crescendo of my personal favorite track “One More Night (Your Ex-Lover Remains Dead)” with all its phase effects–Stars really took every opportunity for experimentation and ran with it. Lyrically, too, there’s always something more to unpack in the dialogue between singers Millan and Campbell. Many a college night was soundtracked by this album, sulking over some girl or another, and 20 years later the album still holds up. What a monumental release in the indie canon.

Maddie : This was kind of a funny listening experience for me, because when I first saw the album name, it didn\'t ring any bells for me whatsoever, and I figured this would be a total blank slate, experiencing something new kind of listen, but as I was getting into it, I ended up having a handful of moments when I thought \"this sounds familiar,\" or \"oh, I do actually know this one.\" So that was pretty neat.

I do really appreciate the sort of accidental prescience of the early track “Ageless Beauty,” because for an album that came out in 2004 (and in many ways feels very of the moment for that time) it holds up really well to a deep listen 20 years later. Like Joe said, there’s a lot packed into this one, both sonically and lyrically, but it still feels like an easy listen — I’ve found myself going back to it a couple of mornings this week as my soundtrack to getting ready for work, if you will. Great stuff, big fan!

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