Stars | Coming to Higher Ground | Oct 17

Don't judge them by that hideously pretentious publicity photo. Their music is much better than that cooler-than-thou ego trip.

Stars, the Montreal quintet that shares three members with Broken Social Scene, will be playing Higher Ground this Wednesday. A quick description of their sound would be a Canadian version of The Pogues with shared male/female vocals but with electronica blips driving the backbeat and lush washes of strings making it pretty.

In 2005, they made their big splash with Set Yourself on Fire which was beautiful and catchy simultaneously. Hopefully, they'll still be dipping into that album for show material. This summer, they released the follow-up album In Our Bedroom After the War. This one has been a little harder for me to get into but I love the first single "The Night Starts Here" and I'm hoping this show will get me more excited about this album.

An added bonus is that The Cush will now be opening. I haven't seen them since they added Michael Clifford to keys and am looking forward to hearing them.

Stars | Your Ex-Lover Is Dead | Buy

Stars | The Night Starts Here | Buy

Stars | Fairytale of New York (Pogues cover)