Guv (ex-F**ked Up) announced new album ‘Warmer Than Gold’ out 30th Jan and sheared the lead single ‘Let Your Hands Go.’

Warmer Than Gold, the new album from Ben Cook’s project Guv, is a document of a life in music, a critical and celebratory travelogue, an attempt to transcend the homogeneous and status-obsessed conditions of the contemporary world through the use of big beats, big choruses, and distortion. It’s a record made on the go that makes sense anywhere. And most of all, with its expanded sonic palette and emphasis on breakbeats, it ushers in the newest era of an artist who has never stopped growing.

The result is an album that feels alive and communal yet completely cohesive and driven by Cook’s vision. Opener “Let Your Hands Go” is a stadium-sized rave rock belter, propelled by breaks, a big hook, and a sneaky acid bassline. On the title track Cook sings lines like “I walk through a town of love and beauty, but now in ruin like a broken heart” and “Paper dreams yeah they all turn cold / Lookin’ for something warmer than gold,” introducing many of the record’s themes over a windswept groove equally suited for sunsets in pre-billionaire takeover Ibiza or a hazy walk from the punk house to the third wave coffee shop. “Blue Jade” drives hard like early Jesus And Mary Chain doing the Poznan, while elsewhere “Chasin Luv” is a cut of timeless sounding indie pop that fuses C86 charm with the shimmer of first wave shoegaze. And through all the sonic twists and turns Cook’s talent for hooks and heart is on full display, whether it’s the shimmering dream pop of Hatchie duet “Never Should Have Said,” the bleary-eyed baggy of “Crash Down Feeling” or the Sarah Records-inspired chime of “Seaside Story,” co-written with Meg Mills of Turnstile.

This Is Pop? today’s song of the day is here for you.