Not to be confused with other bands who have the same name, the Stars we’re talking about here are the highly praised Canadian indie rock outfit who have seen nominations for the Polaris and Juno awards, made the rounds on late night talk shows, and have seen placement on a ton of American TV. Though at their onset in the early 2000’s, Stars was more focused on electronic-pop, as the years have passed, they shifted into more lush rock, though there are plenty of both ideas represented on The North<\/i>. <\/p>\n
This is a disc that works together as a whole better than individual songs. The vast amount of layering and textures really plays in the band\u2019s favor. They self-described this disc as more upbeat and optimistic than earlier release, and there is plenty of happy-go-lucky pop spirit and soaring choruses to back this claim. On the flipside, though, there are just as many soft moments of emotive tension \u2013 a place that Stars has visited with great success. <\/p>\n
As always, the dual gender vocals of Torquil Campbell and Amy Milan are a highpoint of the album. The two have never sounded better together; \u201cWalls\u201d is their finest duet to date, using harps, choirs, and synth to illuminate the sound of heartbreak in song. The songs often take nods to the past: \u201cHold On When You Get Love And Let Go When You Give It\u201d sounds very ’80s, and \u201cBacklines\u201d goes back even further with a ’70’s rock vibe.\u00a0 At other points, namely \u201cDo You Want To Die Together,\u201d there’s even a fleeting \u201850s influence present. <\/p>\n
Though this is very romantic listen in terms of subject matter, Stars does dabble in politics on \u201cA Song Is A Weapon, \u201dwhere the band switches from sounding dreamy in a longing sense to nearly angry. Similarly, on \u201cThrough The Mines,\u201d the band pauses from their synth-heavy melodies and moves into infectious guitar hooks. <\/p>\n
The North<\/i> is an album that doesn’t drastically deviate from Stars\u2019 prior work. But considering how accomplished their sophisticated take on dream pop meets indie rock meets buzzing dance rock has been across all five previous releases, I don’t think many people are going to have a problem with that \u2013 myself included.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":31255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7864],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-42948","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-stars","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42948"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42948"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}