Exclusive Premiere: Gold Record's "Glow Up The Day" - Stereo Embers Magazine Stereo Embers Magazine

Photo courtesy of Gold Record

Our exclusive premiere today comes from the San Francisco/New Mexico outfit Gold Record.

Formed in the throes of lockdown, the members of Gold Record (who also happen to be lifelong pals), decided to do a pandemic pivot and start getting creative.

Evan Michalski, Noah Clark, & Ryan McKone realized it might not have been the ideal time to start a band and the fact that they were geographically challenged with some of them living in the Bay Area and others in New Mexico, made things even less desirable.

But the time was right for Gold Record to be born, so quarantine be damned, here they are.

And we are all better for it.

The band quickly knocked out four EPs and their fifth installment may very well be their best yet. Mixed by Alex Newport (At the Drive-In, Bloc Party, Death Cab For Cutie), Volume 5 finds the lads more sonically adventurous than ever. Rife with inventive percussion, groovy beats and wistful psychedelia, Volume 5 serves as the perfect declaration that Gold Record are here to stay.

The EP’s first single is “Glow Up The Day,” a wicked upbeat number that’s redolent with optimism and boasts one of the catchiest choruses of the year. Buoyed by a smooth croon layered over a bed of dreamy synths, “Glow Up The Day” is nothing short of an instant classic that brings to mind the early work of Take That and Crush-era OMD.

Of the song the band says: “Once quarantine had gone on for a while, there was all this talk about things going back to normal and getting at some non-specific future date. We wanted to write a song that captured the spirit of what we were trying to achieve with this project: how do we make things better and more positive for ourselves right now – even in this weird ass time? The line that really captured the spirit of that which became the guiding mantra is ‘let’s find pleasure in the gray’. This was our reminder to ourselves that sometimes you’re in bizarre situations that feel out of control – but you still have the opportunity to make something beautiful out of it.”

Gold Record will fittingly end the year with a Christmas EP and their plan is to release a song every two weeks through 2021.