Review / 200 Words Or Less
Goldfinger
Hello Destiny

Side One Dummy (2008) Scottie

Goldfinger – Hello Destiny cover artwork
Goldfinger – Hello Destiny — Side One Dummy, 2008

Men in their late-thirties making vague statements about the future's uncertainty under the guise of it being punk rock, there's something concerning about this. It's as if their quarter-life crisis is stretching into mid-life, arresting their development into adulthood. Hello Destiny, the newest album by Goldfinger, finds the SoCal band exactly in this position, angry at the world, rehashing the same bland rhetoric they started pushing since they became a "political" band at the turn of the century. While the music - fast paced, somewhat heavy punk that characterized the early Fat/Epitaph sound - certainly isn't anything to be ashamed of, it also seems kind of stale for a band that's been doing this for close to fifteen years. I'm not saying you have to reinvent yourselves every album, but a little variance would keep things interesting. And no, the ska/ reggae tracks on the album don't count because that, too, is a shtick now tired. Of course I can't say that I didn't see this coming, this was released on Side One Dummy. Their releases by MXPX and the Suicide Machines prove this is a label where bands that once were go to die after being eaten up by the major label machine.

6.0 / 10Scottie • May 26, 2008

Goldfinger – Hello Destiny cover artwork
Goldfinger – Hello Destiny — Side One Dummy, 2008

Related news

Go It Alone Return To Action

Posted in Bands on January 6, 2005

Recently-posted album reviews

Steamachine

City of Death
Records Workshop (2023)

City Of Death is the third album from Polish noise makers Steamachine. Having dabbled in a few metal styles over their career, City Of Death has a heavy carnival influence to it which I have to say I really like. It's interesting just how much more sinister things sound when you pump eerie, jingly circus sounds amongst very dark, heavy, … Read more

Faulty Cognitions

Somehow, We Are Here
Cercle Social Records (2024)

The opening track on Somehow, We Are Here is a statement. Yes, Faulty Cognitions is a punk band with members of Low Culture, Shang-A-Lang, Nocturnal Prose,and more. Yes, this shares a lot of commonalities, but it’s also a new band with a new sound. The band humbly says they were going for an early, jangly R.E.M. vibe but self-confess that it has more of a Replacements thing going on … Read more

Lussuria

Under Crumbled Stairs
Hospital Productions (2024)

Jim Mroz is no stranger to the darkest dungeons of the human mind. These locked doors of the psyche are a common destination for his project Lussuria, through which Mroz has quietly amassed an impeccable discography. And so another immersive chapter of harrowing music sprouts forth with Under Crumbled Stairs, with Lussuria extending their phantom limbs to touch upon numerous sonic … Read more