Goldfinger
Hello Destiny

Thus, the Goldfinger decided to return to the scene in 2008, three years after the disappointing "Disconnection Notice"" and after their "Best Of", featuring on the CD cover the same alien from their first self-titled album (1996), almost as if to conclude a musical journey that began much earlier.

Even though they are presented with the usual "Ska-punk" label, there are really only a few songs of this genre on the album, just two or three like "Get Up" or "If I'm Not Right", because the remaining songs essentially propose a convincing blend of classic youthful pop-punk and a more mature alternative-rock. But the real difference between this and previous albums lies in the themes: almost all of them are very serious, dealing with war, suicide, religion, and international politics, and for me, who started listening to this CD with a lot of superficiality, it was indeed a nice surprise.

The sounds are very reminiscent of the more melodic Offspring (especially those from "Rise And Fall, Rage and Grace" even if this album was released a few months earlier), but not for this reason do they appear boring or predictable; on the contrary, the entire CD proceeds swiftly right from the start with the fast-paced "One More Time" and never encounters interruptions like boring wedding ballads or the like, but instead, it only decreases in intensity in the last "Julien".

I found the instrumental parts very interesting where occasionally there was a trumpet, and in particular, I was convinced by the solos, especially in the seventh track "How Do You Do It" which, thanks to those few seconds of guitar, gains greater credibility and completeness, because at first listen it seemed to me very much "in passing". 

In conclusion, this "Hello Destiny" is the demonstration of an effective maturation of the band, which, even if it cannot yet boast of bringing anything new to the Ska/Pop-Punk and Alternative Rock genre, has managed to "create" a small niche in this vast and repetitive musical world, improving and managing to compose, if nothing else, something more demanding than the usual adolescent scheme of "girls, alcohol and crap". 

As songs to listen to for getting an idea, I highly recommend "Goodbye", "One More Time", "Without Me" and "Get Up".

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