I got word of this new release from my lovely girlfriend who happens to work at HMV. So as an old school fan of the work this band did in the 90's I had to check out their latest endeavour. 'Hello Destiny' brings back alot of the things that made them stand out in the early days. The brass is back, the upbeat off beat guitar is more prominent across the record. Old guitarist Charlie is back, which makes me wonder if I should be thanking him for Goldfinger trying to go back to its more reggae/ska-ish roots.The album starts out with "One More Time" a pretty straight forward pop rock song very reminiscent of the opening songs from the last two records. The highlights of the album are not as many as I use to remember from the older work but "Get Up" has a nice rock anthem shout along chorus and a decent instrumental. "If I'm Not Right" feels like it just came out from 1994, the guitar playing all through the song and the brass coming in strong during the verses. This one has to be one of my favourites during the little saxophone solo right before the trumpet solo adds whats been missing from their songs in a long time. The last hidden song is sung by front man John in what can pretty much be described as a lullaby to his baby boy Julian and truly is a terrific heartfelt song.
The tracks that seemed to fall short in this album were "Not Amused" and Goodbye, Both feeling like they should belong on Open Your Eyes the record was just there with nothing really standing out.
All in all, this seems to be a good step for them to getting back to what made them so good in the first place. I'm interested in seeing how they follow this one up, it's a good listen and belongs right up there with works from Stomping Grounds.
