Stars - In Our Bedroom After The War (Arts & Crafts, 2007)

When it comes to overly-earnest pop of the best kind, Stars have the market cornered. With their excellent 2005 album - Set Yourself On Fire - the band wore their hearts clearly on their sleeves with tracks such as Your Ex-Lover Is Dead and the sublimely beautiful Calendar Girl. Now, with In Our Bedroom After The War, they have upped the emotional ante further still.
In Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan, Stars has two singers, neither of whom is afraid to bring an emotional intensity to songs that may otherwise pass as simple exercises in pop-by-numbers. Millan's voice spills from the stereo like a warm wind blowing on a cool autumn day; it is a voice that carries care and compassion, while hinting that we live in a world in which those two commodities are becoming all the more rare. Campbell's voice seems more assured than ever on this album, and tracks such as Barricade and the rousing In Our Bedroom After The War share a similar feel to some of the finer moments in Morrissey's oeuvre.
Stars are at their best when Campbell and Millan share singing duties on songs such as the slow-burning, The Night Starts Here and the clamorous Take Me To The Riot. While the quasi white-boy soul of The Ghost Of Genova Heights is something of a misfire, the album recovers immediately with the somewhat disconcerting Personal, a back-and-forth exchange between two lonely souls seeking companionship in the personal pages.
Passionate, fragile, exuberant, disarming: In Our Bedroom After The War is all these things and more; yet another superb release from the excellent Arts & Crafts label.

Check Out: http://www.myspace.com/stars

Sounds A Bit Like: Morrissey and Cat Power fronting a Canadian pop band.