Stars @ Sound Control, Manchester, 13 January

Live Review by Chris Ogden | 20 Jan 2015

Although their seventh album, No One Is Lost, brings a dancier approach, Montreal’s chamber pop stalwarts Stars are still the dramatists they always were. Fifteen years in, Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan’s camp front-pairing remains something of a novelty, Millan playing the foil to born ham Campbell’s skittish posturing. This time, however, bassist Evan Cranley gets to bring the funk as the duo flounce across the stage through the opening gambit of From the Night and a bouncy We Don’t Want Your Body.

The crowd takes time to embrace the disco direction until A Song Is a Weapon heats them up: “Je suis fed up with the whole fucking thing!” Campbell spits, decrying political hypocrisy while armed with a tambourine. Millan takes over, leading the chirpy, Camera Obscura-tinted chug This Is the Last Time before the six-piece slow the pace to plough through 80s-sounding serenade Look Away.

Come the second half, Stars start to fall back on the old favourites – and it’s clear that their earnestness, while sometimes ham-fisted, remains their most endearing asset. After the soaring escapism of Elevator Love Letter, the band congratulate a teary-eyed couple that got engaged mid-song – a moment that captures the deep attachment their songs can inspire. Amusingly, Campbell and Millan accidentally dampen the lovebirds' spirits with the swooning Your Ex-Lover Is Dead, the duet showing off the pair’s astonishing interplay before they turn the mic for us to shout the stirring final lines.

The band make their final bows with the fatalist rave of No One Is Lost's title track and the pithy What Is to Be Done?, a slight comedown of an encore. Despite their chipper show running out of gas, there’s enough here to prove that Stars are always capable of burning brightly. [Chris Ogden]

http://www.youarestars.com