Will we wake in the morning and know what it was for

I’m sitting in the Las Vegas airport waiting for my connecting flight to head back to my old Washington home for Christmas. And I can say that I’m not a big fan of the Las Vegas airport, any more than I am of Las Vegas the tourist trap. In the entire terminal I’m stuck in I couldn’t find any food that looked even remotely appetizing, and neither could I find a single place selling Sprite. Now, I’m not even a huge fan of Sprite but I developed a big of a craving after I realized how completely they had eradicated it from their airport.

Anyways, it occurs to me that I never did post about the new Stars album, despite my initial enthusiasm about it’s pre-release release. It’s called In Our Bedroom After War but it should have been called In Our Fancy Studio After Listening to Too Many Smiths Records. Amirite?

Don’t get me wrong. They’ve always had a huge Morrisey influence, which is part of what I loved about them. And I’m not opposed on principle to a “produced” sound. The problem is that production on their past records has created a glossy, almost gossamer sound. But here it just makes things sound heavy – pregnant with possibility but very little fulfillment.

Perhaps the best song is the atmospheric opener “The Beginning After The End,” which packs a major punch in its two minutes. Mostly instrumental, and sounding like the perfect mix of personal and epic, with a delightful conclusion of a disembodied voice whispering “Oh the blood and the treasure, and the losing it all, the time that we wasted and the place where we fall. Will we wake in the morning and know what it was all for? Up in our bedroom, after the war?” – if the whole record could have maintained this texture it could have been something truly special.

Sadly, the next track is a pleasant but slightly lackluster”The Night Starts Here” – which sounds like an amalgamation of every Stars b-side or track that didn’t quite make the cut on Set Yourself on Fire. It’s got all the elements: boy/girl vocals, a strong beat, those glittering guitars…but you just keep wondering when it’s going to soar. And the fact that it never does leaves you feeling just a bit empty.

And so it goes with the rest of the record. There are no bad songs, and quite a few that are very solid (notably “Take Me To The Riot” and “Midnight Coward”), but it never seems to find its groove. It’s cool if they didn’t want to make another perfect pop record about broken hearts, but the bigger experiments on tracks like “Life 2: The Unhappy Ending” never quite pan out, either. The result is a record that’s plenty enjoyable, but nevertheless disappointing because I had such ridiculously high hopes.

The Beginning After The End – Stars