advertisement
FYI

Gold & Youth: The Worse The Better

A moody alt-rock cut with an apocalyptic theme.

Gold & Youth: The Worse The Better

By Kerry Doole

Gold & Youth - The Worse The Better (Paper Bag Records). Last week, this Vancouver-based alt-rock quartet announced that its new album, Dream Baby, would come out on noted Toronto indie imprint Paper Bag on Nov. 5.


Along with that news comes the first single and video, The Worse The Better. In a label press release, Gold & Youth say, "The Worse the Better is a fun little bop about water-sliding into the abyss. A woozy anthem for the downwardly mobile about the crushing banality of evil rendered by the acid vat of late-stage capitalism as we work dead-end jobs at the end of history and pray for some technocratic saviour to build us a biodome on Mars. Loud and fast and then sputtering and wheezing, kind of like a dream machine going kaputt as it runs out of gas. Truly the feel-bad hit of the summer!"

advertisement

The Worse The Better does fit the tenor of these troubled times. Accompanied by a black and white video, it features ringing guitar, atmospheric keyboards, and moody vocals, while strong production stamps it as ready for modern rock radio consumption

Look for similar heady themes elsewhere on the album, with frontman/lyricist Matthew Lyall declaring that "Dream Baby is about the myriad systems we’ve devised and implemented to damn our world, but it’s also committed to cultivating and protecting hope and resistance amidst it all."

The group first made a splash with its 2013 debut album, Beyond Wilderness (out on Arts & Crafts). It elicited praise from major international media outlets, with The Guardian astutely describing its sound as "drawing equally on American alt-rock and English synth-pop to achieve a brooding rhythmical miserablism"

Gold & Youth open for Yukon Blonde at Capital Ballroom, Victoria on Oct. 22, and Hollywood Theatre, Vancouver, Oct. 23. 

advertisement

Links

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

Publicity: Freshly Pressed PR- Julie Booth

Management: High Tide Artists- Alex Wyder

advertisement
Derrick Ross at Billboard Canada Power Players at the Illuminarium in Toronto on June 11, 2025.
Door 24

Derrick Ross at Billboard Canada Power Players at the Illuminarium in Toronto on June 11, 2025.

Business

Canada's Most Influential Executives Celebrated at Billboard Canada Power Players 2025

Billboard Canada gathered music's most influential people at the Illuminarium on June 11 as part of NXNE.

The biggest players in Canada's music industry gathered to celebrate the second edition of Billboard Canada Power Players last week at NXNE. The 2025 edition of the illustrious list was commemorated with an exclusive event at the Illuminarium in Toronto on June 11.

Many of the influential executives honoured on this year's Power Players list were present, as well as their peers in the music industry and many of the managers honoured at the Billboard Canada Managers to Watch event earlier in the day. The wraparound LED screen in the Illuminarium made for an immersive setting and a DJ set from DJ DevoDLive kept the crowd grooving with Afrobeats, dancehall, R&B and hip-hop.

keep readingShow less
advertisement