One Voice, Northwestern’s student initiative aimed at stopping human trafficking, presents Canadian rock group Stars this Sunday at 3 p.m. on the Norris East Lawn. The show should be plenty great, especially if the good weather holds, and to help get you excited for the event, One-Click Wonders takes a look at the group headlining, introduce them to those unfamilar and offer some insight into their career.

Who’s in Stars?

Stars is a five-piece, Montreal-based band known for lucious, emotional indie pop. The group consists of Torquil Campbell, Amy Millan, Evan Cranley, Chris Seligman and Pat McGee. Campbell and Millan share lead-singer duties, often trading the role from song to song. The duo, along with Cranley, also perform in Canadian uber-band Broken Social Scene, one of the most celebrated indie acts of this decade. Millan also records under her own name, and has released one album.

Musical history

Stars released its first album, Nightsongs, in 2001. It followed up its humble debut with 2003’s earnest Heart, an album seeing the group expand its poppy sound and storytelling ability. The quintet released its most successful album, critically and commercially, in 2004: the gorgeous Set Yourself On Fire. Stars perfected its ability to rock out without losing any earnestness, and the people responded. Stars became a Juno-award nominee and went gold in Canada. The album also helped the band get exposure, leading to songs from the album being used in episodes of The O.C. and Degrassi:The Next Generation. In 2007, Star’s released its fourth album, In Our Bedroom after the War, to mostly praise. The band released the album online two months before its original release date, in an effort to prevent an Internet leak of the LP.

The Essentials

“Going Going Gone” — One of the group’s more simplistic numbers, from Nightsongs. Utilizing only a repetitive beat, a few sparse vocals and piano, Stars constructs a very fulfilling song. “Going Going Gone” also hints at the band’s electro tendencies and downtrodden lyricism. It’s the band at its most bare-bones.

“Elevator Love Letter” — Off of Heart, this song showcases Stars’ excellent ability to craft a story within a pop song. The plot focuses on a rich girl and a guy pining for the rich girl, and somehow in the span of a little over 3:30, tells a rather complete story. The forward-thinking sounds help too.

“Heart” — Read this Stylus article on the song. I think they explain why it’s great.

Set Yourself on Fire — Stars’ masterpiece finds the band packing every instrument and emotion they own onto one CD. The band’s most daring effort doesn’t introduce any new twist to the group’s dynamic, but finds them weaving the strings and synths popping up in their earlier releases more efficiently and elegantly. And their words ring with more emotion than ever before, their Smiths-worthy characters developed deeper emotionally. “Your Ex-Lover is Dead” and “Ageless Beauty” steal the show, two of the finest tracks recorded in the Oughts, each one loaded with beauty equal parts melancholy and optimism. An underexposed masterpiece.

“Your Ex-Lover is Dead”

“Ageless Beauty”

“Midnight Coward” — Some of the songs above demonstrate the great interplay between Millan and Campbell’s voices, and this cut, from the latest album, further demonstrates that.

Final Thoughts

I’ll keep it simple; go see Stars, especially if it’s a warm day out.