Guitar shimmer. Bittersweet harmony work. The new Marlovers track may sound like it’s cut from disparate ‘90s and early- aughts bits of cloth, but the quirky-sweet execution remains theirs and theirs alone.
“You chase a lone star, this world is upside down – and you should know.”
That’s the crux of Marlovers’ latest single “Lone Star,” and right off the bat, you get a hint of the shifting of some immeasurable weight.
The Mallorca-based quartet, who first charmed the Lilystars congregation with the jangly buoyancy of “A Rainy Day in the Moon,” still trade in melody and melancholy. But this time around, the dance between both feels sharper, leaner, more deliberate.
When all is said and done, “Lone Star” – produced, mixed, and mastered by Guillermo Bauzá in the band’s home studio – may sport the veneer of an indie-pop sing-along, but it’s essentially a vehicle for introspection.
It’s about feeling untethered from a world that’s lost its meaning – “chasing something unattainable and idealized,” as the band puts it – while dragging along a past that perhaps deserves less reverence.
It’s nostalgia by way of resignation, but a sliver of hope manages to pierce through the crack in the glass. If “A Rainy Day in the Moon” was a difficult smile through a punishing drizzle, “Lone Star” is a much-deserved ogle at an otherwise starless night sky, trying to make sense of what’s gone missing.
The band cites Teenage Fanclub, Alvvays, and The New Pornographers as reference points, and faint shadows of all those artists are palpable in the track’s guitar shimmer and bittersweet harmony work. To my mind, though, it sounds like it’s cut from disparate ‘90s and early-aughts bits of cloth, melding a Shonen Knife playfulness with a Cranberries brand of earnestness.
“Lone Star,” ultimately, is indie-pop meeting power-pop halfway, with all the saccharine ache and jangly uplift that equation implies.
There’s, moreover, a quiet confidence to Marlovers’ approach to evolution. “It retains the band’s signature jangly guitars and catchy melodies,” they confirm, “but there’s [also] been a conscious effort to improve by simplifying the message and getting straight to the point sonically.”
This resistance towards ornate overstatement is refreshing. Where many indie acts dowse good ideas in studio sleights-of-hand, Marlovers know when to leave well enough alone.
Interesting tidbit: “Lone Star” was originally written and recorded in Spanish before the band decided it deserved an English reincarnation, and a place in their upcoming full-length ‘Sixteen Sunrises from the Soyuz.’
That title alone hints at cosmic ambition, and “Lone Star” feels like the perfect prelude: wistful but grounded, distant yet deeply human.
There’s a moment in the track when the melody hangs just long enough to sound like surrender, then bursts into brightness again. It’s the same tack Marlovers employs from the start: sadness and hope coexisting in the same little nook, their hands intertwined and fingers locked into beautiful knots.
If “A Rainy Day in the Moon” was a handshake, “Lone Star” is a wave across the void. And you wave back, smiling, because you already know they’ll make it home.