Goldfinger has shown their fans many sides. They were an upstart punk/ska outfit when they released their self-titled debut album in 1996. Their extraordinary live show was perfectly timed for the ska revival of the mid-to-late '90s.
They then saw their popularity grow exponentially with the release of 1997's Hang-Ups and 2000's Stomping Ground.
The band then turned over a new leaf, lyrically speaking, when they released the overtly political Open Your Eyes in 2002.
Goldfinger saturated the album with animal rights and anti-corporate rhetoric, and it seemed as though the band was poised to distance themselves from their pop-punk contemporaries.
However, the band's newest album, Disconnection Notice, takes Goldfinger a gigantic step backward into the field of pop/punk.
Notice is little more than another pop-punk effort that can be added to the ever-growing pile being churned out by the record labels today.
With the exception of \Behind the Mask,"" every single song on Disconnection Notice provides the listener with lead-singer John Feldmann's generic introspection and desire for the ubiquitous girl with whom he is infatuated.
The album disappoints, especially considering this is Goldfinger's fifth full-length release and they have had a decade to hone their chops as a band.
While the album is musically catchy, it seems like the band focused too much on adding unnecessary elements to the music (like mandolins on ""Damaged"") instead of on creating the full-out, raw brand of punk and ska that made them popular in the early stages of their career.
However, the most disappointing element of Disconnection Notice has to be the lyrics. As mentioned earlier, it appears Feldmann and Co. merely experimented with political lyrics on Open Your Eyes instead of taking those beliefs and running with them.
It is hard to forget Feldmann proudly proclaiming, ""Fuck Ted Nugent"" and openly criticizing MTV on Open Your Eyes. So when he writes a song for an artist such as Ashlee Simpson, which he actually did for her debut album, the many rabid old-school Goldfinger fans cannot help but scream, ""Hypocrite!""
Goldfinger's latest effort, while not especially terrible, does the band's true fans an extreme disservice by appearing to feed the stereotype that many of today's gigantically successful punk bands have lost their convictions.
If a band has always stuck to this ""songs about girls"" formula, it's one thing-it makes sense, it's what the band is known for. Those bands really have no political or social credibility to lose.
But when a band like Goldfinger releases an album like Open Your Eyes, only to follow it up with a schmaltzy, over-produced product perfect for the tastes of (surprise!) MTV, it makes the truest fans of punk rock music wonder if there are any bands left that will stick to their guns.
