For 18 years, Ben Cook has been making head-over-heels pop songs under a handful of similar names: Young Governor, Young Guv and the Scuzz, Young Guv. The project, recently rechristened as GUV, has outlasted Cook’s time playing guitar on Fucked Up’s punk operas and his stint as the frontman of Toronto hardcore band No Warning. But where other pop formalists write from a narrow frame of reference—’60s sunshine pop, Nuggets, “Ticket to Ride”—Cook is a sonic mercenary, arriving at whatever genre he’s into with hooks in hand. He has convincingly aped Dirty Mind-era Prince, plucky synth-pop, and the Byrds’ country phase with jangling 12-string guitars, rich harmonies, and familiar, relentless melodies.
Cook visited London in 2024, drinking in pubs and ambling around on Gray’s Inn Road, not far from where he grew up in Brixton. The trip helped inspire his latest album, Warmer Than Gold, a swing at the “baggy Manchester opioid chic” he dabbled with on GUV IV’s bedroom experiments in 2022. His latest is a thick slab of massive Britpop. But there are simply fewer earworms than we’ve come to expect. Without the hooks, Cook’s tales of cosmopolitan life, romance, and dislocation can become tiring. He’s searching for love again, he’s found the one, he’s struggling to pull away, he’s traveling across the world; rinse, repeat.
With production from his No Warning bandmate James Matthew Seven, Cook puts together a lush palette of early shoegaze and Madchester-adjacent hallmarks for Warmer Than Gold. Flanged-out acoustic guitars and harmonies from Hatchie help “Never Should Have Said” conjure early dream-pop, “Thorns in My Heart” brazenly cribs from the Cure, and “Crash Down Feeling” is the closest GUV gets to the dance-inflected grooves of Primal Scream. Tubthumping drum machines appear at various points, providing a shot in the arm for the otherwise drowsy “Blue Jade.”
GUV has always prioritized style over substance, and the swaggering atmosphere makes sense for an artist who currently has a framed Oasis poster on his otherwise blank walls. His voice, deadpan and sneering, fits nicely atop the imposing, anthemic “Let Your Hands Go,” while the Auto-Tune all over “Hello Miss Blue” underlines Cook’s dazed, wandering affect. But the more earnest Cook’s songwriting gets, the more difficulty he has selling his lines. On “Seaside Story,” which is built around misty, clean electric guitars, he practically sounds bored with himself.
As far back as the earliest Young Governor singles, Cook’s lyrics have lacked specificity, although it’s rarely been a problem when paired with his instinct for snappy melodies. His pet subject has always been romantic exploits, but even the worst of his lyrical clichés were paired with surprising modulations, call-and-response harmonies, or alluring pop tricks. On Warmer Than Gold, he invokes colors as an emotional shortcut, mentioning “neon glow” and “hundred shades of blues” on “Out of This Place.” But the melodies aren’t strong enough to excuse Cook’s drab language. When he sings, “I must be crazy to be chasin’ love again,” you’re likely to agree.
Warmer Than Gold hits its stride when Cook struts his stuff, leaning into influences from the ’90s dance floor. With jutting synths and a drum’n’bass beat, “Oscillating” is the right kind of ridiculous, while the similar “Hello Miss Blue” accrues momentum as Cook details how the girl of his dreams is losing her London groove. GUV excels at crafting mood music for walking around the city, feeling confident and delusional. “Want it/Get on it/See it comin’,” he commands in “Let Your Hands Go,” and with these words of affirmation, he earns the right to wear those Liam Gallagher sunglasses.
