Friday 24 December 2010



Winter bones

CONTEST: Win Stars' The Five Ghosts CD

Back in June, my review of Stars‘ The Five Ghosts wasn’t nearly as glowing as I might have expected it would.  Given that I’ve always been a big fan of the band, I never would have thought that I’d end a review of their record wondering whether or not my love affair with them had come to an end.

It also ended with a hopeful “To be continued…” and at long last, I’m ready to continue the discussion about The Five Ghosts with myself (and any of you who are reading).  In June I said that The Five Ghosts may just end up being my least favourite Stars record, and that’s proven not to be true (I like Nightsongs a lot less than this one).  It’s not risen to the level of my favourite (Set Yourself on Fire still holds that title, with Heart running a close second), but it’s charms have grown on me in the last six months.  “Dead Hearts”, the stunningly beautiful opener really has become one of my favourite Stars songs ever, as has “I Died So I Could Haunt You” and “Wasted Daylight”.  I still stand by my assertion from June that the album doesn’t have the consistency of their previous records, but maybe it’s not because of the songwriting, as I first suggested, but because of sequencing.  I’ve tried to come up with a better tracklisting, but even with all my tinkering I haven’t been able to hit on a perfect combination.

Regardless, The Five Ghosts isn’t the disappointment I may have lead myself to believe it was.  There’s a lot of great moments here, and if you’ve yet to hear it, now your chance to snag some swag for yourself.  Not only will I send you the 2-CD deluxe limited edition version of The Five Ghosts which includes The Séance EP, but I’ll also throw in your very own QBiM t-shirt.  Just drop an email at CONTESTS [at] QUICKBEFOREITMELTS [dot] COM with “I See Dead People” in the subject line, and your mailing address in the body, along with your preferred shirt size:  M, L, or XL (sorry, we’re all out of Smalls).  The winning reader will have their wares sent out to them after the weekend’s festivities are done.

MP3: Stars “Dead Hearts”
Myspace: Stars
Facebook: Stars
Twitter: Stars





by J. Di Gioia | 1 Comment »

This entry was posted on Friday, December 24th, 2010 at 8:35 am and is filed under Contests, MP3. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “Winter bones”

Charles December 24th, 2010 at 2:35 pm

Completely agree with everything in this post. I still find the record underwhelming, but about six months after my first listen I suddenly realized what a good song Dead Hearts is.

Still waiting for them to deliver on the promise, though.