The Golden Dregs

Gritty, rough-hewn musicality” - Clash

“Godspeed feels like a home run, exceptionally polished and refined; the final result is a testament to the band and their dedication to their craft” - NARC., 5/5

Exquisite ennui” - Uncut

Today, South London’s The Golden Dregs release their fourth studio album Godspeed, out now via Joy of Life International in collaboration with End Of The Road Records. A step forward for the project, Godspeed sees frontman Ben Woods expanding his once-solo vision into a fully realised ensemble - each band member’s voice now threaded into the record.

Featuring recent singles ‘Big Ideas’, ‘The Company of Strangers’, and ‘Linoleum’, which were praised by the likes of Clash, The Line of Best Fit, and Uncut, Godspeed reveals The Golden Dregs at their most collaborative and confident. While Ben’s baritone remains front and centre, the album explores broader, lusher territory - layering bittersweet melodies and ironic lyricism over synth-led arrangements, wiry guitar lines, and driving rhythms. The band will be in for a live session on BBC Radio 6 with Riley and Coe on Monday: tune in here. 

Godspeed opens with ‘Big Ideas’, a simmering duet between Ben Woods and Issie Armstrong that captures a conversation teetering on the edge of collapse. Brooding vocal lines - “you don’t owe me, but I feel you flagging” - sit against an arrangement of bass, warm synths, and subtle strings. Next is ‘Linoleum’, the album’s most energetic moment. Beneath its bright harmonies and driving drums lies a song steeped in irony and inertia. ‘The Company of Strangers’ follows with a blend of folk-tinged guitar, playful piano, and rich harmonies. Its catchy, elegant delivery veils deeper questions about connection, obsolescence, and life on the margins: “Maybe it’s time I was taken out to pasture / since lately I’ve been getting it wrong.”

‘Imagining France’ arrives like a dreamlike postcard with off-kilter, woozy folk tones. That same mood carries into ‘The Weight of It All’, a slow-building standout led by Issie Armstrong, whose haunting vocal turns a meditation on care and emotional overload into something quietly devastating. ‘Erasure’ follows with a stripped-back blend of acoustic guitar and piano.

‘In The Headlights He’ brings a burst of energy, leaning into alt-pop grooves and infectious hooks that lyrically explore masculinity, guilt, and reckoning. Then comes ‘Heron’, where driving synths and a driving pulse build towards an almost euphoric chorus. It’s a piece of baritone synth-pop steeped in existential dread: “I came here to drink on my own / I don’t see the problem.”

‘Perfume’ dances through theatrical disorientation, marrying dark humour and resignation in its recurring question: “do you come here often?”. The next track, ‘If You’d Seen Him’, is jagged and anthemic. The penultimate ‘The Wave’ swells with a sense of closure, cautiously hopeful and deeply human. ‘Godspeed’, next, drifts in with a soft digital pulse and minimal electronic textures - Ben’s most intimate vocal performance yet, and beautifully disquieting in its simplicity.

Godspeed is one of The Golden Dregs' most realised and cohesive work to date. It’s thoughtful and expansive, confirming the band as one of the most intriguing and vital acts in the UK right now. To mark the release of the album, The Golden Dregs will take to the road for a run of UK headline dates and festival appearances, including a show at the 100 Club and a set at End Of The Road Festival.

“We’ve been dying to meet you,” Ben Woods sings on “Linoleum”, the second single from Godspeed, album number four for The Golden Dregs. This rousing greeting doubles as a mission statement for the project. What began as a solo endeavour by the then Cornwall-based multi-instrumentalist and producer has grown into a six-member ensemble, each artist deeply rooted in London’s grassroots music scene. On Godspeed, for the first time, each band member contributes individually, but Woods’ songwriting and resonant baritone remain at the core — an anchor welcoming listeners into the fold.

The city plays its part here. A very close ear will pick up London’s cranky ambience, recorded on a handheld recorder by synth player Davy Roderick, then woven into the songs. And where the previous The Golden Dregs record, On Grace & Dignity (4AD), held up a light to and lamented a certain kind of rural experience, Godspeed turns the contrast up three or four notches above its predecessor, feeling cut through with the spirit of the city because of it. The highs are higher: a wall of sound soars more and more euphorically on penultimate track, "The Wave”. The lows are lower: “I think I’ve had enough to last a lifetime” announces the chorus on "The Weight of it All”, a beautifully devastating homage to irreparable situations, sung by Issie Armstrong.

“People have inspired this record. To be in a densely crowded space, surrounded by strangers, and to think for a moment how every person is living out their own stories, figuring out loss and love and frustration and all the things that make up the human experience - I find that so curious. It’s a deeply personal record, but I like to think that it is personal with open arms, an experience to be shared.”

Indeed, The Golden Dregs’ songs have always been less about telling individual stories and more about narrative vignettes, snippets of images that leave the listener guessing. And although Godspeed has a clear sense of character — “I came here to drink on my own, I don’t see the problem” (Heron) eerie synthesisers abounding; “maybe it’s time I was taken out to pasture / since lately I’ve been getting it wrong” (The Company of Strangers) — this is not introspective music. It looks beyond its author and his immediate situation to something more collective.

While it continues the sonic signatures of the previous records from The Golden Dregs, Godspeed is more immediate. The hooks are constant — hear “Perfume”, “The Company of Strangers”, Stranglers-esque cut “If You’d Seen Him” — but rarely resort to familiar tropes, leaving room for unpredictable turns. This assuredness is given further weight by the fact that Woods own label Joy of Life International, an imprint of and collaboration with End of the Road Records will release the album: a statement of independence and creative intent. Much like the current incarnation of The Golden Dregs, Joy of Life International is also a dynamic collective – January 2025 sees the label release its first non-The Golden Dregs music: a single by Ohtis, an established alt-country project based in Normal, Illinois, produced by Ben Woods, with further releases in the pipeline.

“Songs are such a precious commodity. This label has been established out of necessity, to create a space in which these songs, and the songs of other writers that I admire, may be platformed and encouraged and celebrated. It also provides a release avenue for some of the artists that I produce, a sort of farm to table approach to music making.”

Last year, in between finishing this new record and setting up Kate Bush’s former studio as a new base for solo work and Joy of Life International, the band supported Future Islands at Crystal Palace Park, opened for Ezra Furman at Union Chapel and sold out a series of surprise intimate gigs to test new material. The future looks bright for these songs to find their people. Godspeed.