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Set Yourself On Fire degli Stars dovrebbe convincere anche i più scettici di ciò che a me appare sempre più una certezza, e cioè che il Canada è oggi l'Eldorado del pop-rock d'autore.
Sarei tentato, per parlare di questa loro "difficileterzaprova", di cedere al sentimentalismo, di farmi guidare, nel descrivere il luminoso percorso delineato dalle tredici tracce che compongono l'album, dai modelli di riferimento della band canadese, gruppi a me cari del recente passato, come gli Smiths, i Prefab Sprout, i Saint Etienne, Momus, ma non sarebbe giusto. Così facendo, si potrebbe dare l'idea, sbagliata, di trovarsi di fronte a dei cloni, all'ennesimo gruppo che, negli ultimi tempi, si è affidato furbescamente alle sonorità anni '80 ritornate in auge, rischiando il plagio in qualche occasione.
Intendiamoci: la musica degli Stars non è quella dalla quale c'è da attendersi il rinnovamento radicale, l'originalità assoluta, la pietra miliare. Si innesta su una tradizione, si potrebbe dire, "riformista" per natura o al massimo, per citare un brano dell'album, da "Soft revolution" (ma, attenzione, la cover, censurata negli USA, potrebbe spostare l'accento sul secondo termine dell'ossimoro), che vive di spostamenti anche minimi, che vede rare volte nell'arco di un decennio qualcuno portare avanti il limite in modo sensibile. Quindi, i modelli sono importanti, forse più che in altri generi; però, sono il modo di rapportarsi ad essi, la sapienza e il gusto nell'ibridarli, oltre alla genuinità e alla freschezza dell'ispirazione e al talento nello scrivere canzoni, a fare la differenza, a dare quell'alone di luce che li rende chiaramente distinguibili dagli altri pop-group. Gli Stars da Montreal, a mio parere, possiedono tutte queste qualità, hanno quest'aura.
"Your Ex-Lover Is Dead" è uno dei migliori brani d'attacco ascoltati nell'anno in corso: atmosfere lievemente dark, corpose chitarre alla Marr e l'apporto degli archi che ricorda un po' i connazionali e loro amici The Dears, e due magnifiche voci che duettano mettendo la parola fine al loro rapporto d'amore, quelle di Torquil Campbell e Amy Millan, una biondina che pare una via di mezzo tra Wendy Smith e Susanne Vega. La title track fa pensare a dei Magnetic Fields più vivaci, ma il lungo commiato è a levare, quasi sussurrato. In "Reunion" sono protagoniste la voce della Millan e dei riff chitarristici che ricordano vagamente quelli dei Jesus & Mary Chain. In "The Big Fight" il pendolo oscilla verso il pop e per una buona metà si dispiega come un duetto pop di effetto, salvo trasformarsi verso la metà in una specie di elettro-song strumentale alla New Order: un piccolo gioiello.
Ma è la loro versatilità, la spigliatezza e l'abilità con le quali trattano svariati elementi musicali della tradizione pop-rock a colpire e destare ammirazione.
L'ispirata classic ballad "Sleep Tonight" lascia il posto alla nervosa e newordiana "The First Five Times"; l'alternative rock, con rumorismi compresi, della tiratissima e inquietante "He Lied About Death", una delle vette dell'album, si eclissa, cedendo il passo al pop solare tipo Polyphonic Spree, opportunamente arricchito di ritmo ed elettricità.
Queste "Stelle", forse, non saranno di prima grandezza, ma per il firmamento musicale risultano essere indispensabili, soprattutto per alcune "costellazioni", meglio visibili naturalmente nei freddi cieli del Canada.
Elenco tracce testi samples e video
01 Your Ex-Lover Is Dead (04:16)
God that was strange to see you again
Introduced by a friend of a friend
Smiled and said "Yes, I think we've met before"
In that instant it started to pour,
Captured a taxi despite all the rain
We drove in silence across Pont Champlain
And all of the time you thought I was sad
I was trying to remember your name...
This scar is a fleck on my porcelain skin
Tried to reach deep but you couldn't get in
Now you're outside me
You see all the beauty
Repent all your sin
It's nothing but time and a face that you lose
I chose to feel it and you couldn't choose
I'll write you a postcard
I'll send you the news
From a house down the road from real love...
Live through this, and you won't look back...
Live through this, and you won't look back...
Live through this, and you won't look back...
There's one thing I want to say, so I'll be brave
You were what I wanted
I gave what I gave
I'm not sorry I met you
I'm not sorry it's over
I'm not sorry there's nothing to say
I'm not sorry there's nothing to say...
02 Set Yourself on Fire (05:39)
In a village in the hills
House buried to the window sills in snow
In a prison yard at night
An Alsatian barking for the stars to go
In the attic of a house
In the slats of light which creep across the room
In a forest grove at dawn
Where the animals sleep hidden in the gloom
On the 97th floor overlooking Tokyo
In Camden road in a second floor flat with
Dilworth down below
There is only one thing
There is only one thing
In a cancer ward where the patients sit
Waiting patiently to die
In an aeroplane high above the place
You finally left behind
In a cage where only one thing could be free
And it's not you and I
In a cage where only one thing could be free
And it's not you and I
In every single place that has ever, ever been
Hiroshima, Los Angeles and each town in between
There is only one thing
There is only one thing
One thing
In the darkest part of you that you have ever seen
In the smile of the child staring at the TV screen
In the diary of a priest, in the sheets that lie upon his bed
Out there amongst the waves and inside your lover's head
There is only one thing [x6]
There is only one... thing
20 years asleep before we sleep... forever
20 years asleep before we sleep... forever...
03 Ageless Beauty (04:05)
Ageless beauty
Cruelty makes its holes
But on the shoreline
Time will hold its promise
We will always be a light
You can see it from the surface, see it
We will always be a light
You can see it from the surface, see it
We will always be a light
Tattered fingers
Lingering on the warm and foolish
Hardened faces
Graceless, we'll lose the battle
We will always be a light
You can see it from the surface, see it
We will always be a light
You can see it from the surface, see it
We will always be a light
Oceans won't freeze
So loosen your heart
Underestimated
Undefeated in this love
We will always be a light
You can see it from the surface, see it
We will always be a light
You can see it from the surface, see it
We will always be a light
04 Reunion (03:41)
In the year of my decline
Sucking freezies in the rain
Driving twisted in the suburbs
And then driving back again
Seventeen and half alive
Headlights illuminate the school
Inhale the powder from the science class
Yeah nearly dying felt so cool
Your face is all that hasn't changed
You're reassembled just like me
But when I reach to touch your hand
You stroke mine gently
All I want is one more chance
To be young and wild and free
All I want is one more chance to show you
You were right for me
You were right for me
I'm back in gym and it's the same
As my name tag floats away
I had six too many drinks last night, yes
And thats why I made you stay
Plus I always wanted you
You liked to rock it in your car
You said you didn't understand me
Because I always tried to see too far
Well "Tainted Love's" too fast to dance to
So let's leave them all behind
They hated us with everything they had
And we hated them in kind
All I want is one more chance
To be young and wild and free
All I want is one more chance to show you
You were right for me
All I want is one more chance
To be young and wild and free
All I want is one more chance to show you
You were right for me
Reunion, reunion...
11 Celebration Guns (03:05)
And so tomorrow there will be another number
For the one who had a name
Desert wind and a perverse desire to win
History buried in shame
[Chorus:]
All the beating drums
Celebration guns
The thunder and the laughter
The last thing they remember
[Chorus]
And then the next day
How will you know your enemy
By their color or your fear
One by one you can cage them
In your freedom
Make them all disappear
Six hundred sixty-six hundred sixty days
Two guards for one uncharged
This morning's papers, ink stains my fingers
My hands grow darker everyday
[Chorus x4]
Goodnight, sleep light, stranger [repeat x3]
12 Soft Revolution (03:16)
We are here to save your life
The fool, the drunk, the child, and his wife
We won't let the sun go down
We gonna chase the demons out of town
Singing when you feel alone
Backwards through the megaphone
Singing to the ones you love
And the ones you'd like to be rid of.
We are here to take the blame
To take the taunts and if the shame
We are here to make you feel
It terrifies you, but its real
It will keep you up all night
And in the flood of morning light
Spilling out across your room
You say the words will get there soon
The revolution wasn't bad
We hit the streets with all we had
A tape recording with the sound
Of the Velvet Underground
A K-Way jacket torn to shreds
And a dream inside our heads
And after changing everything
They couldn't tell we couldn't sing
After changing everything
They couldn't tell we couldn't sing
They couldn't tell we couldn't sing
And that changes everything.
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