Young Guv has revealed his new video “Try Not To Hang On So Hard” from GUV II, out on Run For Cover, October 25. Just off the heels of his acclaimed album GUV I, released earlier in the summer, GUV II serves as a sequel collection of profoundly poignant and infectious pop tunes with choruses you’ll never forget and lyrics whose dry wit and understated acuity will knock you flat. He’s also confirmed a short run of dates with the Vivian Girls including performances in NYC, Philadelphia, two nights in Chicago and more.
Young Guv is Ben Cook. Think of the contemporary guitar music that’s meant something to you in the last 18-odd years. Cook has probably had something to do with making it or influencing it. Think of No Warning, which he’s fronted since he was in high school in the ’90s, who pioneered a self-aware, intertextual, and technically adept style of New York hardcore that has became a subgenre unto itself, dominating scenes all over the world for close two decades and counting. Think of F*cked Up, for which he’s played guitar since 2006, the aesthetically omnivorous, thematically ambitious punk-rock-deconstructing band-like entity that, unlike the bulk of their contemporaries in the late-2000s festival-circuit indie-rock boom, no one is ashamed of having associated themselves with. Think also of his behind-the-scenes presence, the co-writing and production work he’s done for a host of artists at all levels of renown.
WATCH “TRY NOT TO HANG ON SO HARD”
Young Guv recently discussed the making of a rock & roll record in 2019 and his double LP series with co-producer Tony Price (4AD, DFA, Slumberland) over at the Talkhouse—read it all here.