The Stars We Are

With Marc Almond again switching labels and the Willing Sinners mutating into La Magia as his backing band, The Stars We Are felt like a refresh moment before even hearing a note — but far from being merely a refresh, it turned out to be the source of his biggest successes in years. So engaging was Almond’s part-orchestral/part-synthpop turn on this album that he scored his first American hit in a while, “Tears Run Rings,” while a cover of the Gene Pitney classic “Something’s Got a Hold of My Heart,” with Pitney joining him in a duet for the single version, hit number one in the UK.