Star Power - They know each other well and aren't afraid to take risks together.

"Pop music" is a funny term. On the surface, it's fairly innocuous, an attempt to categorize three- to five-minute songs that desire broad commercial appeal, but in practice would better serve as a reminder of what music should be - instant, accessible, memorable and original. While many bands won't admit to being a pop band, fearing it will be connected with Top 40 and Billboard, Montreal's Stars are quite the opposite.

Beginning with 2004's Set Yourself on Fire and continuing with last year's In Our Bedroom After the War, Stars have delivered two masterful albums of lush, romantic pop gems. Born out of this decade's Canadian rock renaissance, Stars fit nicely between the scatter rock of Broken Social Scene, the feminine melodies of Feist and the chamber pop of the Dears, at times sounding like all three at once. Featuring the intertwining vocals of Amy Millan and Torquil Campbell (who both moonlight with BSS), and the symphonic, dreamy sounds of Evan Cranley, Chris Seligman and Pat McGee, Stars have finally come to realize their full pop potential.

In Our Bedroom After the War is the type of album that many bands work on for a lifetime and sometimes never achieve. Yet for Stars, all it required was a strong previous effort to build upon and the confidence of their label, Canada's Arts & Crafts.

"For the first time we actually had some money to make the record we wanted," says Campbell, speaking via phone from his Vancouver home. He quickly qualifies that statement, downplaying the importance of a large recording budget.

"Ultimately though, records always end up being about the obstacles that you face along the way, and in some strange way, those end up in forming it more than the things you have. So even when we had tons of resources, it still ended up feeling like the things that were tough were what made this record good."

It's a somewhat fitting conflict considering the theme of the album is very much turmoil and starting anew. While War is a delectable menagerie of co-ed vocals, sauntering beats and eloquent imagery, it's an album that could have sunk under the pressure of eclipsing previous success. Its true testament is in its ability to put across complex themes through divergent perspectives.

"I am always eager to write for Amy," Campbell says, "because her voice expresses a lot of things that I could never get away with. You can write from perspectives that maybe you couldn't pull off personally. But the words get led by the music and by the sensibilities that are coming out of Chris and Evan and Pat. It's a conversation that goes on. If we're in a writing session and I write a song from a certain point of view, that might inspire Amy to write something that's either a reply to that song, or an adaptation of that theme, or vice versa."

That band dynamic and approach has continued to serve Stars well. Band members know each other's tendencies and aren't afraid to take risks together, and it is even evident in their business decisions. While Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails recently received positive publicity for their digital distribution strategies, Stars actually beat them both to it by releasing War over the summer to iTunes and other digital outlets within a week of final mastering, and three months before the physical street date.

"It was an experiment," Campbell explains. "That is an essential problem in music right now. How do you overcome people's abandoning CD sales? As a musician who's still trying to make a living in this game, you have to come up with new ways of getting the music to people that they will appreciate and that is easy for them.

"I think eventually the time between producing music and people accessing it will shrink exponentially and it will go back to the way it was in 1964, when you could go in and cut a single and the next week it was out in the stores," he continues. "And I think that's what pop music should be. It should be instant, and it should be a close experience."

Stars, Martin Royle

9 p.m. Monday, March 31

Beachland Ballroom

15711 Waterloo Rd.

216.383.1124

Tickets: $15