Northern Star

Rolling Stone 3/5 How do you court an audience of adults when your fan base is their five-year-old children? This is the demographic quandary facing the solo Spices. Melanie "Sporty" Chisholm solves it by switching stylistic teams for nearly every track on her first outing away from the Girls.

All Music 3/5 It's not a knock-out, yet Northern Star is a solid, well-crafted alterna-pop of modest but palpable charms.

Slant 3/5 While many of the slower songs are quite beautiful, complete with acoustic guitars and soaring string arrangements, they sound like outtakes from Madonna’s Ray of Light.