Thomas Cole’s “Stubble” is out now and it is pop built for open windows and long drives, not for casual background listening.

The production, courtesy of Electropoint, throws a lot at the wall and somehow none of it slides off. Electro pop fizz, a nod to dance floor thump, a driving bass line that never lets up, and then, out of nowhere, a splash of country twang creeps in round the edges. On paper that combination sounds like a fight nobody wins. In practice it works well, and the chorus lands so hard you’ll be singing it back before the song’s even finished.

But scratch beneath the shiny surface and there’s something a bit more thoughtful going on. Cole is using stubble, of all things, as a metaphor for everything we carry with us: the scrapes, the growing up, the bits of ourselves we stop trying to smooth over. “Everyone has a story they survived,” he says. “The stubble is simply the evidence.” It’s a neat little line, and it saves the song from being just another slice of empty confidence pop.

That’s really the trick here. “Stubble” wears its message lightly. It doesn’t lecture you about being genuine, it just struts around being genuine, which somehow makes the point better. A video is landing alongside the track, and if it captures even half the energy of the song itself, expect plenty of knowing grins and not much polish.

Check it out here.