Holding On has the atmosphere of one person transforming a tough year into something beautiful, restless, honest, and alive.
Holding On, the first album by The Snow Ponies, has an immediately personal touch. The group’s name is Phil Dean, who has for many years been writing music, performing, recording and navigating the various stages of his life. Having played in over 500 gigs, spent years performing in bands all over England and Australia, taken a long time off from writing songs, and then returned to New Zealand, Dean once again started writing. The album thus comes across not as a carefully planned comeback but rather as a set of songs that simply had to be written.
Holding On was recorded from June 2025 to May 2026, a period which Dean refers to as one of particular difficulty; it is this circumstance that gives the album its emotional depth. The title is not merely a label. Dean observed that the expression ‘holding on’ occurs in five of the ten songs on the record, showing that there is a repeated theme running throughout the album – namely, holding on to love, hope, memories, and all else that continues to seem meaningful when life grows uncertain. Moreover, there is an awareness of death, of nostalgia, and of the odd anxieties associated with ageing.
In songs like “Giving It All Away”, “Oh My God”, “I’ll Be There” and “Slipping Away”, The Snow Ponies combine the attitude of indie rock with the vivid style of new wave and show off sharp songwriting. “Oh My God” has a more direct and energetic feel, whereas “The Long Way Home” and “Beautiful Mess” show a more reflective aspect of Dean’s writing. “Holding On” is naturally at the centre of the album, and “Expecting To Fly” and “Ringing The Bells” help to round off an album which continually shifts between uncertainty and hope. What makes the record so interesting is that Dean played all the instruments himself and let the songs develop naturally over the course of a year. He lived with the tracks constantly and shaped their sounds as he was recording them rather than forcing them into a set formula. This method is what gives Holding On such a strong personal touch. The Snow Ponies draw on a wide variety of influences, such as Neil Young, Pulp, David Bowie, The Only Ones, Wet Leg, Metric, Suede, PJ Harvey, Tom Waits, Lana Del Rey, Björk and Kate Bush. Yet the album doesn’t come across as an attempt to imitate these artists. On the contrary, those influences appear to have contributed to an album that is clearly Dean’s own. Having released four singles in the past year, Holding On at last presents the complete picture. It is an album concerning surviving difficult times without pretending those times never occurred. There is sadness in it, but there is also humour, affection, energy and a determined wish to keep creating. In this way, the album’s title says almost everything: sometimes making something meaningful is in itself a way of holding on.
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