Broken hearts and beautiful music

After playing it again and again, Stars' Set Yourself on Fire hasn't failed to impress me. The twee electronic pop album by the Montreal-based band (who, by the way, includes several members of Broken Social Scene) is its third release and the first I've heard. It will be uplifting to some ears and too pansy for others.\nStars are romantics and Fire distinguishes them as such throughout its 13 songs. Navigating recovery from the emotional nadirs of a failed relationship, the prevalent attitude seems to be that of determined optimists not looking for condolences but instead a kind of going on when — no matter where one goes — the working sadness of love lost always follows close behind. Each track succeeds in taking you out of whatever lovelorn or reflective moment the previous one had you in by finding and transmitting another that's equally aurally pleasing and feel-good.\nThe dueling boy-girl diary page confessionals by Amy Millan and Torquil Campbell have a Belle & Sebastian sort of art school cleverness and lyrical drama to them, as well as overblown sentimentality very much akin to that of the Postal Service. The songs cross gorgeous cascading string arrangements, a melody-leading bass line, piano and percussion with Stereolab-meets-Air electronica, fusing emotive, almost repetitive rhythms with dynamic, firefly-like atmospheres.\nFire's first single "Ageless Beauty" is propelled by a restless tempo and singer Millan's feathery chords. "One More Night (Your Ex-Lover Remains Dead)" is a slower-paced and seductive he-said/she-said ballad about two lovers' last night in bed. The track lures you through a seductive concoction of instrumentation and breathy verse, Millan crooning at one point, "He drops to his knees/Says,'Please my love please/I'll kill who you hate/Take off that dress you won't freeze.'"\nThe last four songs shift the mood a little, straying from warring lovers to war itself to the soft revolution (killing the bad guys with love). In "He Lied About Death," a machine gun shower noise seers through an anti-Bush diatribe, and "Celebration Guns" is a workout between the string section and pulsed fireworks as Millan sings a stirring lullaby for the fallen.\nGoing through a breakup is always a painful period, but Stars' rollicking approach of 'and now, time for a little song and dance' is a good way to pick up and build something anew. Put some jeans and Stars on -- perfect headphones pop -- and you'll be ready to start a new day no matter your relationship status.