The Canadian band Stars have a connection to Connecticut, to Fairfield County in particular. The Montreal group recorded parts of their 2017 record “There Is No Love In Fluorescent Light” in Bridgeport, at Peter Katis’s Tarquin Studios. (Katis’s band, Philistines Jr. will open the show.)
Stars make smart, emotional and lovely synth-tinged indie pop music that harkens back to the Cure and the Smiths. One can hear a connection to the Canadian indie supergroup the New Pornographers in the pairing of the vocals and the ennui-tinged sadness. Stars songs have a high-gloss polish and smoothness, a stylish urban sophistication that still has room for a churning romance.
The band’s music, like the song “Hope Avenue,” might be perfect for the very last tunes played at a nightclub, when the dance floor is about to empty and send the dazed revelers out into the early morning and near-empty streets. Stars also made one of the most lovely and, yes, haunting songs about ghosts and love: “I Died So I Could Haunt You,” off their fittingly spectral 2010 album “The Five Ghosts.” Sometimes wounded love songs are the most moving, and Stars know how to tap into the ache.
Stars play the Fairfield Theater Company’s Warehouse, 70 Sanford St., Fairfield, on Thursday, April 19, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $28. 203-259-1036 or fairfieldtheatre.org.
