The Dears' Murray Lightburn doesn't mind the comparisons to one of pop's more famous, or infamous leading men, The Smiths' Morrissey.

On the contrary, he seems downright proud. "I'm a huge, huge fan," he admits. "It's music I can aspire to."

Aspire he does on the Montreal band's new CD No More Cities, which the band will showcase when they come to Babylon this Friday.

Their followup to 2001's The End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story, No More Cities is the next chapter in The Dears "bedroom rock," angry, passionate power pop fuelled by pouty, jilted-lover vocals and Harlequin romance lyrics filled with remorse and regrets.

Like his hero Morrissey, Lightburn isn't your "average Joe" working the conveyor belt at rock's factory. He enjoys playing the role of the chronic art lover. Smart and literary, he's got good people writing some of his material.

BIG-PICTURE VIEW OF THE WORLD

The self-described "guy's guy book guy" is fond of quoting Graham Greene, Martin Amis or Kurt Vonnegut. That could be the reason for his big-picture view of the world. That spirit is imprinted all over the album.

"No More Cities has a grand concept that there's hope amidst despair," he reveals ominously.

"The world's in apocalyptic times and instead of looking for reasons to love each other, we're still at war. It's 2003 and we still haven't evolved."

The rest of the world may not be evolving, but the band sure is, faster than Lightburn ever anticipated.

LABOUR-INTENSIVE PROJECT

No Cities Left was a labour-intensive project. Written, performed and produced by Lightburn, he recorded as many as 500 takes to make sure he got the album right.

He got it right.

"The record's doing better than we expected," he says optimistically. "We're covering an absurd amount of ground pushing it."

Suddenly, rock journalists want to talk with him all hours of the day. The phone's ringing too much.

"Recording the album ruined my life," he proudly overstates. "Three months straight in the recording studio didn't leave anytime for anything else."

Like Sam Roberts, Stars and Soft Canyon, The Dears are the latest major players to emerge from Montreal's quirky club scene, a scene that's making Montreal the next Halifax of hot music capitals.

"It's a happening scene," he says. "Everyone I know is releasing a record. It's something to do while the world's crumbling. The scene's getting back to basics."

SCENE SETTER

THE DEARS

- Where: Babylon, 317 Bank St.

- When: Friday, $12 at the door