[1] After being one of the most significant figures in the English Folk Revival of the 1960s, Collins withdrew from music in the late 1970s when she developed dysphonia, attributed to being left by her second husband, Ashley Hutchings.

[7] Daniel Paton of musicOMH praised the album, saying: "whether stark and menacing, grief-laden or simply plain daft, Lodestar is a triumph of storytelling and sound".

[12] Mike Goldsmith of Record Collector wrote: "the music exceeds expectation and while this understandably isn't her best album, it looks at the current trend for reformations and reduces them to ash".

[13] Neil Spencer of The Observer wrote: "the mood is austere, studded by encounters with mortality, but the accompaniments from Oysterband's Ian Kearey are full of subtlety and surprise, with delicate guitars and blasts of squeezebox.

[15] In a mixed review, Alexis Petridis of The Guardian wrote: "this should all be heavier going than it is: that it isn't is at least partly down to the arrangements, which are largely based around acoustic guitar and subtly effective throughout.