'Five Ghosts' remains true to Stars' roots

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For those who enjoy The Postal Service songs that include a female singer, but were always left wishing they were a little less electronically enhanced, Stars’ new release “The Five Ghosts” is the album you’ve been waiting for.

With the sound, beat and lyrical quality fans of the band have come to expect from Stars, “Ghosts” still brings a slightly new overall sound to the indie-pop group. With this album being their first full-length original collection to be released since the 2007 CD “In Our Bedroom After the War,” fans (myself included) waited impatiently for the group to stop messing around with EPs and covers (as good as they might have been).

Starting the album off with “Dead Hearts,” a slower-paced upbeat song, is a good introduction in to the CD, although the sudden halt it comes to is a little jarring. However, the signature wispy vocals and light feeling of the song make up for it.

As with any Stars CD, listeners can expect a spacey feel to the instrumentals and solid group of songs for background music as well as something deserving one’s full attention.

The track “We Don’t Want Your Body” gives listeners a new side of the group, veering off from the expected Stars sound, executed with much more of what can only be called a retro-pop feel. The song seems to be more of them dabbling in new styles than something they will actually stick to, but was definitely a successful foray into something new.
I use “new” as a relative term, as you can always tell a Stars song once you know their sound.

However, I must say the personal favorite of mine off their new collection is far and away “Never Been Good With Change.” With its simple beat and the soft female voice being spotlighted on the track, the lyrics move between assertive and vulnerable, with parts of the chorus being whispered at times as though the singer is speaking with only herself. The song feels intimate and confused — in the most honest way possible. I really can’t get enough of it.

Although the album on the whole is an enjoyable and adorable listen, the band does flirt with the line between good and cheesy a few times (such as on the track “Fixed”) but always manage to recover gracefully.

As I suspected they would, Stars delivers a great album with “The Five Ghosts,” and while still experimenting just an arm’s reach out of their usual bubble. But most importantly, Stars still remains, hands down, the cutest band on the indie-pop scene — and that is one thing I hope never changes.

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