Kevin Bronson on June 23rd, 2014

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John Gold’s falsetto-drenched power-pop is the stuff of unbridled hope in the face of dreary reality, an aesthetic he cultivated during his years as a DIY “writer-songsinger” (as he calls himself) and polished to near pop perfection on his 2011 album “A Flower in Your Head.” It’s that polarity he brings to his new single “Glow Stars,” a song inspired, he says, by a New Year’s Eve walk in Big Sur. “There is a spark of Neil Young ‘After The Gold Rush’ as a theme and because of that I quote a line from his song ‘Heart of Gold,'” Gold says. “It’s a love song in spite of the fact that we’ve abused our Mother Earth and worn our welcome.” The tune appears on a new EP with a James Bond-like title: “You Only Live Forever.” Gold, a familiar voice owing to his many songs in advertisements and film and on TV (“Weeds” and “The New Girl” among them), made the EP with producer and T Bone Burnett collaborator Keefus Ciancia. It’s out July 15 via Vagrant Records.

||| Stream: “Glow Stars”

||| Previously: “Baby It’s Your Life”