Carlos Forster Press

“For Stars have, or had, about everything you could ever want from a pop act.  Things such as sterling melodies that aim, missile-like, right for that part of the subconscious containing memories of longlost summers and high school crushes that never quite worked out; melodies that manage to drip with sentimentality without ever becoming mawkish; and best of all, Carlos Forster’s wistful, heartbreaking voice (which at times resembles a male version of The Innocence Mission’s Karen Peris).  For Stars used all of these to great effect, recording two albums of indie-pop at its finest, and sweetest; 1998’s For Stars and 1999’s Windows For Stars.  Some people might dredge up the Death Cab For Cutie comparison, but I personally find such a comparison falls way short of the mark.  On these two albums, the band created their own little insular musical world, full of melancholy and wistfulness, and just the slightest bit of darkness menacing the edges and keeping things from becoming too sappy or cloying.” – Opus

“Carlos Forster sings like he’s praying. Talks like it too, sometimes. And on occasion it seems as though the band he sings and writes songs for, For Stars, isn’t really a band at all, because what you notice more than anything else is the voice: Forster sings softly and slowly, frequently rising into a cracked, pained falsetto. Like some of San Francisco’s other high priests of acoustic heartbreak — Mark Eitzel and Red House Painters’ Mark Kozelek come to mind — he’s awash in a sea of misery, but capable of writing a melody so gorgeous and haunting it moves from the merely sad into the sublime.” – SF Weekly

“Made up of outtakes from For Stars and Windows For Stars, the band’s first two US albums, Airline People stands as a strong testament to the strength of For Stars’ material. Carlos Forster is a master of melody, and he sounds like a softer-spoken version of Jackson Browne. Like Browne, the band’s home is California; their instrumentation, though stripped to basics, also bears similarities to Browne’s early classics, and the light Caribbean touches make me wonder if David Lindley made a guest appearance .” – Splendid

“…It Falls Apart, the band’s fourth full-length, has arrived, quavering vocals, organ dirges, and bubbling synths ablaze. For Stars seem to be angling for a happy medium, and in some ways, they achieve it. Like Radiohead without the intellectuality and studio precision, or Grandaddy without the endearing sloppiness, the California group hover between stylistic opposites… – Pitchfork