Stars have always crafted widescreen, romantic pop, songs full of intimate details and grand ambition even when they were working as a duo with a few cheap keyboards and a drum machine. Over the last two decades, their line-up has expanded, contracted and expanded again, and records have been made with bigger budgets and sometimes famous producers. But their core ideals have remained resilient: heartfelt music that sounds good in an indie disco or at home by yourself. You know, the whole spectrum of “How Soon is Now?” but finding the joy in little moments as well as those when you go and stand on your own and you leave on your own and cry and want to die.*
Working with The Besnard Lakes’ Jace Lasek, Montreal’s Stars sound appropriately cinematic on their very good ninth album.
Their ninth album, “From Capelton Hill” finds Torquil Campbell, Amy Millan, Chris Seligman and the rest of the band working with a very sympathetic collaborator, The Besnard Lakes’ Jace Lasek who really helps them achieve the appropriate level of grandeur and sweep that their songs deserve. It’s a wonder these Montreal residents haven’t worked together before. Jace also sings backup on the album, as does
The Dears’ Murray Lightburn, making this a very Montreal affair. Stars remain at their best with one foot on the dancefloor, mixing electronics and a beating heart, and “Palmistry” and “Build a Fire” are wonderfully sultry additions to their cannon, as are swoony indie-pop numbers “Pretenders” and “Hoping.” Few bands that were with us at the dawn of the millennium continue to sound this vital. “If I could count up every mile we passed, how did we even make this last,” Campbell and Millan ask on “Patterns.” “Our memory splits in two cause we don’t do goodbye.”
released May 27th, 2022
Written and Arranged by Stars:
Chris Seligman, Evan Cranley, Torquil Campbell, Chris McCarron, Amy Millan, Patrick McGee
The Fat Angel Sings 