Young Guv's GUV II Out Today On Run For Cover

Prolific and dedicated songwriter Young Guv has released the second part of his double LP series, GUV II today via Run For Cover. GUV I & II are a 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. Today he's also detailed the release of the physical deluxe double LP version which sees its release on Run For Cover November 8 and includes two bonus tracks. The pre-order is up now, click here.

Praise for GUV I and GUV II:

"For 23 minutes, Cook transports himself to a simpler time, one that may exist only in indie rom-coms, when watching clouds go by or lying around in bed amounted to romance." PITCHFORK

"hook-filled" FADER

"a swirling delight, combining fuzzy production with warm melodies that sounds like an 8-track was left to melt in the summer sunlight for a few hours" PASTE

"truly unique lo-fi power pop" FLOOD

"honey-sweet and extremely catchy" BROOKLYN VEGAN

"'GUV I' sounds quite a bit like if Simon & Garfunkel or the Mamas and the Papas were born 25 years later, and broke onto the scene in the early '90s alongside bands like Teenage Fanclub and the Posies" EXCLAIM

"folky, power-pop tune, frontman Ben Cook flaunts his musical craftsmanship and versatility as a songwriter" ALTERNATIVE PRESS

"Every song we have heard is top drawer, and you should be eager to add the album to your library." WHEN YOU MOTOR AWAY

Think of the contemporary guitar music that's meant something to you in the last 18-odd years. Ben 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.

Ben Cook doesn't like talking about his music but he understands it. "To me Young Guv songs are like people-watching in a foreign country in the morning," he says, ever the master of the vivid metaphor. "I'm there and I'm trying not to cry from the overwhelming feeling of sadness and happiness."

People-watching in a foreign country. Another way of putting that would be to say that Young Guv songs are about being alone. As the years have passed, as material and social conditions have conspired to make everyone feel increasingly alone, Ben has built a Guv discography out of invoking the desolation that arises when you're isolated in physical and mental space but surrounded nonetheless by millions of other isolated, solitary people, literally any one of whom you could, for all you know, love with all your heart for the rest of your life, but almost none of whom, you're forced to admit, will become anything more than a briefly transfixing stranger, at best a wraith that recurrently haunts your dreams.

GUV I & II Deluxe 2xLP Tracklisting:
Run For Cover
November 8, 2019
Pre-order Here

1 - Patterns Prevail
2 - Roll With Me
3 - Every Flower I See
4 - Luv Always
5 - Didn't Even Cry
6 - High On My Mind
7 - Exceptionally Ordinary
8 - Boring Story
9 - She's A Fantasy
10 - Try Not To Hang On So Hard
11 - Caught Lookin'
12 - Trying To Decide
13 - Forgot To Feel
14 - Can I Luv U In My Own Way
15 - Song About Feeling Insane
16 - Can I Just Call U
17 - Can't Say Goodbye

Bonus Tracks
18 - Try Not To Hang On So Hard (demo)
19 - Hammer & Pulse (demo)

Young Guv Live Dates:

11/1: Chicago, IL - The Empty Bottle ^
11/2: Chicago, IL - The Empty Bottle ^

^ with Vivian Girls