★★★★★
An amalgam of their past albums and experiences, The North by Stars is a sweet stream of melancholy. It focuses on more dramatic themes and carries a heavier message (as is the norm for Stars), yet still shines with wonderful bursts of cheer riddled throughout. This Canadian indie-pop quintet has had a career full of ups and downs since their formation in 1998, from which they have grown considerably as artists...
- www.ink19.com
2013-04-02
★★★★★
Stars are one of my favourite contemporary Canadian bands. I own three of their previous releases, because I really like their ability to write and perform songs with a decidedly retro eighties sound. I can't help but think that the Montreal music scene, with contemporaries like The Stills, had some influence over this Toronto born and raised group. I love their music...
- www.musicvice.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
Canadian Indie Pop band Stars are currently touring North America after a brief jaunt around out own country. In commemoration of the tour, Stars have released a tour EP featuring the three acts joining them on tour. The bands accompanying Stars on tour and featuring on the You Guys Are Awesome tour EP, are fellow Canadians Yukon Blonde; Said the Whale and Californian based Milo Greene. Opening the EP is Stars very own "Hold on When You Get Love and Let Go When You Give It"...
- www.theaureview.com
2013-02-24
★★★★★
For their sixth album, Toronto's set out to make a record about "here... where we live", to "tell Northern stories". The aptly titled result sees the band producing a set that is rich with a sense of storytelling, sentiment and atmosphere, warm beneath its songs' occasionally chilly edges. The North sees Stars in philosophical bent, ruminating beneath the autobiographical vignettes of "total f***ing alcoholic"s and the "dude who sold us ecstasy" on the connections between madness and freedom...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2013-04-23
★★★★★
"Just 'cause you're crazy doesn't mean that you're free." This is in the first verse of "The Theory Of Relativity," the track that opens Stars' sixth studio release since their debut in 2001. Craziness doesn't mean freedom--acting like a lunatic, screaming at the top of your lungs and running down the street with no clothes on may feel 'free,' in the sense of being loosened from a social contract, but acting free also gets you locked up in your city's version of Bedlam...
- www.prefixmag.com
2012-09-27
★★★★★
Although the enshrinement of pop continues to carry discrepancies, disagreements and discord, there's little disenchantment with its overall spectrum of style. The catchy effect, the easy ability in being able to revel in heart-warming subjects and the combination of 80s influence into the brand new 2010s we live in, is a remarkable thing...
- www.adequacy.net
2012-09-17
★★★★★
Release Date: September 4, 2012 Over a dozen years of blending into the background of the vast indie landscape, Toronto's Stars have led a prolific but not quite spectacular career. Despite this, Stars are quite the critic's pet with unending praise being piled on most of their releases...
- absolutepunk.net
2012-09-13
★★★★★
"Take the weakest thing in you / And then beat the bastards with it," Torquil Campbell sings on The North's "Hold On When You Get Love and Let Go When You Give It", distilling his band's greatest strength into a single inspiring line. In the best Stars songs, weakness isn't overcome, but rather fetishized and magnified into theater...
- www.popmatters.com
2012-09-13
★★★★★
An unrivalled sense of happiness comes with listening to any offering from Canadian superstars Stars. It's hard to fault a band that marries the gorgeous vocals of Amy Millan with Torquil Campbell's soulful serenity; album after album, Stars have managed to give us some of the greatest indie-pop songs of our time and with the release of The North, their sixth studio album, that trend will not be stopping anytime soon...
- www.theaureview.com
2012-09-13
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