Review Summary: The best Goldfinger album yet will make the listener feel very alive.
“It’s time to get up; it’s time to stand out. I need a change to feel strange, to feel alive.”
It’s safe to say that every single one of us has been in a moment of our lives in which those thoughts have crossed our minds. It’s the moment when the normal things feel boring and insignificant, the moment when it feels you’ve hit a wall. Don’t feel too bad for yourself though, this happens to bands too, and if you need an example then look no further than Goldfinger.
After several good solid albums, Goldfinger crashed badly into a wall with their previous album, Disconnection Noticed. The abandonment of their ska roots to stick to a more mainstream punk-rock/Alt sound suffering from mediocre musical execution resulted in a bunch of uninspired songs with some catchy hooks. In order to bounce back from that failure, Goldfinger needed a change, needed to get up and actually play something that stands out; enter
Hello Destiny.
Hello Destiny is a great example of the difference one band member can have on an album. With the return of guitarist Charlie Paulson the band has found their identity again. Not only has the band found and improved their sound, they have finally found a way to keep an album consistent and refreshing, something that has been a flaw in their work.
By bringing back their ska influences, always having a background presence in the album, and with a mega improvement on guitars, caused by the return of Charlie, the band took their music to a new level. They managed to do what many bands have tried and fail, mix the old with the new.
Hello Destiny brings back their basic more ska oriented sound and mixes it with harder pop-punk resulting in something not short of impressive. Great examples of this are the tracks
The Only One which has a heavy ska sound, and
Handjobs For Jesus which is a great hard pop-punk song with an amazing guitar solo that fully demonstrate how far the band has come in their musical execution.
Nevertheless, the album is not without flaws. A few songs like
Without Me and
Bury Me fall short of what they could have been which gets a bit frustrating. On the musical side, they rely heavily on the guitars to carry and give a backbone to the album, giving very little emphasis on the drums which mostly just maintains the beat. In the end, this isn’t something that badly damages the album because of how well it is executed, but it causes a lack of musical variety that, although not major, can be annoying for some.
The best Goldfinger album yet and one that hopefully shows the direction in which the band is going,
Hello Destiny will please old and new fans alike. It shows that Goldfinger still have plenty left in the tank and that mixing things up doesn’t have to be a bad thing. They got up and made a stand out album that will make the listener feel very alive.
“It’s time to start a movement and there’s no time like right now. It’s time to get up, get up, get up. Why won’t you stand up, stand up, stand up?”
Recommended Songs:
Handjobs For Jesus
War
Get Up
Not Amused
Thanks man. Constructive critic is always welcome. 
