Three and a half years after their Antartica LP, Mallorca, Spain-based twee pop quartet Marlovers return with Sixteen Sunrises from the Soyuz, a concept album that wears its premise lightly and lets feeling do the heavy lifting (as the band puts it: “Astronauts aboard the Soyuz orbit Earth roughly every 90 minutes, witnessing about 16 sunrises and sunsets in a single 24-hour period; our album uses the metaphor of 16 daily sunrises witnessed from a drifting spacecraft and explores how love, identity, and healing evolve [while] being far away from everything”).

The 16 new songs specialize in bright guitars shadowed by poetic doubt, turning slacker pop nostalgia into something oddly life-affirming. There’s a homespun charm to the earnest, slightly scruffy, and disarmingly sincere performances, supported by effective vocal variation and a rocking rhythm section. Emotional gravity and psychedelic comfort hold the entire 50-minute flight, like sunshine through thin clouds: warm, familiar, and just melancholic enough to remain after the last ellipse fades.

Sixteen Sunrises From The Soyuz is out now digitally via Lilystars Records. Featuring Marina Mullor Morata, Simó Reus Mestre, Guillermo Bauzá Muñoz, and Alberto Santolaria de Hevia.

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