On their last album, Set Yourself on Fire, Stars wrote some of the best break-up songs imaginable. “Your Ex-Lover is Dead,” “The Big Fight” and “One More Night” all dripped with the emotion of collapsing relationships and bad goodbyes. For their new album, In Our Bedroom After the War, they use a decidedly different perspective.

The members of Stars actually sound happy throughout most of Bedroom, and, fortunately, happiness translates well for the band’s sound. Much of the album is upbeat, as if the band feels revitalized in finding hope again. Instead of dissecting broken relationships, they revel in new ones, especially on “My Favourite Book” and the inexplicably named “Bitches in Tokyo.”

Musically, the album is similar enough to SYOF it could be considered a companion piece. The arrangements are still lavish, though the band does go back to some of the electronic influences found on earlier albums. “The Night Starts Here” has the most insistent dance beat on the album, but the band remains rooted in indie-pop.

Amy Millan delivers a typically sultry and soothing performance throughout the album, but Torquil Campbell displays a previously unheard vocal range, experimenting with the limits of his voice. The results are surprisingly strong, including his Prince-like performance on “The Ghost of Genova Heights” and the Morrissey influence he employs on “Barricade.”

The only misstep here is the conceptually disastrous “Personal,” theatrically chronicling a failed response to a personal ad in a newspaper. “Life 2: The Unhappy Ending,” is much more successful as theatrics go, complete with sung stage directions and set descriptions and even a veiled shot at their new sense of confidence, as Campbell sings, “where’s my unhappy ending gone?”

In Our Bedroom After the War isn’t as immediately affecting as Set Yourself on Fire, but the two albums complement each other in a way that makes them better together than they would be individually. Helped by the strongest performances of both Millan’s and Campbell’s careers, Bedroom keeps Stars pointed in the right direction.