This is the fourth album by these popular Canadians, 2005’s Set Yourself On Fire sent them from every day band to virtual mainstream success in the Indie world, garnering rave reviews seemingly everywhere. Their infectious guitar pop is coupled with chilly keyboard atmospheres and a twee sensibility in their lyrics. So there is pressure from both a newly expanded fan-base and an expectant media for In Our Bedroom After The War to live up to the previous album.

It’s clear the new album retains their keyboard atmospheres and great songwriting in the first three or four tracks, it’s like a succession of quality singles (excepting the instrumental first track). Both “The Night Starts Here” and “Take Me To The Riot” create that butterflies-half-way-up-your-throat feeling that the best indie pop inspires. “Take Me To The Riot” deals with a relationship that one party is trying to destroy and cling to at the same time, “You despise me and I love you/It’s not much but it’s just enough to keep” this is a heartbreaking song, and typical lyrical territory for Stars. The fourth track, “My Favourite Book”, is sweetly sung by Amy Millan and the lyrics are suitably twee “You come in, I can read you/You’re my favourite book”, this is a nice contrast to some of the jaded scenes in “Take Me To The Riot”.

After that excellent start, the album becomes less focused and starts to drag in the middle, despite containing the best song on the album. “The Ghost Of Geneva Heights”, doesn’t work. Torquil Campbell affects a falsetto a la Prince/Bee Gees, which hinders the flow of the album with it’s ridiculousness. The best track on the album “Personal” takes something like an epistolary form, two people (narrated by Amy and Torquil) communicate through personal ads, to the sound of restrained instruments and little keyboard parts that exist in the ether. The story in “Personal” is constricted by the form they are communicating in, which only serves to make it more compelling than it would’ve been. Another poor song, “Barricade”, drags the middle part of the album down. A story about two football hooligans from Bermondsey who are in love, the ridiculous subject matter harms the beautiful piano and fragile vocals by Troquil.

“Window Bird” and “Bitches In Tokyo” are a couple of enjoyable Millan sung tracks that rescue the mid-album slump. The last two tracks return to the excellence of the start of the album. “Today Will Be Better, I Swear!” is an up-lifting, positive song that could turn any grey day sunny. This lyric is all you need to know, “When the worries of the world hold your feet/And there’s little left to believe in/Today, today is gonna be a better one”.

Finally, the eponymous track finishes in grandiose style, using the momentum of “Today…” to encompass the album’s themes. The “War” in the album’s title can be interpreted as the process of growing up. Whether that be when one is in their teens, mid 20s or beyond, the “War” is the process of encountering things in life which change the person you are, such as relationships and being in situations that force you to understand new things about yourself. A solid follow up to Set Yourself On Fire, In Our… has the occasional misstep but always comes back with some strong tracks. There isn’t much that is drastically different about this album, but that is actually a good thing where Stars are concerned.
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Links
Stars [official site] [myspace] [buy it]