27

I bought this maybe 5 months or so ago and I just listened to it again and realised that I haven't written about it. This is Holding On For Brighter Days by 27 and it was released on Marcus' label Endless Quest Records. You can read his blog of the same name right here

I think I was buying another release by Endless Quest in the form of Hope Defeated's 7" when I first noticed this record or at least the description of the band and their sound, described as 'melodic dark pop finds its own path, as if it’s sprouting through a cracked cement playground at night; it moves easily from lushly full to gently sparse, revolving around the alluring and captivating vocals.' That sounded pretty interesting to me and I made a mental note to check it out at some point.

 

A little while later I picked up this amber glitter version of the vinyl limited to 356 for a VERY reasonable $6. It's had maybe 15 spins since then. It's a really cracking album and sounds exactly as described above. Dark stripped down haunting pop songs i guess kinda in the vein of Jonah Matrangas acoustic One Line Drawing stuff, but not really. In fact this is actually quite hard to describe which is odd really because you wouldnt think it is until you actually come to do so. Both beautiful and painful.

 

This is the best I could do to capture the vinyl, i assure you that is glitter and not my dandruff on the record. It's a really good looking record. I love a surprise buy like this, it's had way more spins than I ever thought it would and it's a really good record to chill out to late at night. The bands cover of Crazy by Gnarles Barkley is great and well worth a listen to that track alone.

 

If Marcus has any left I highly recommend giving this a chance for those times when you want something a bit different to your usual heavy as f*ck hardcore diet. I really need to check out the bands other stuff.

 

'Part of me just wants to go,

But I keep it high to keep it low'