Goldfinger: Ska-Core

Goldfinger are a tanned and tattoo'd band from Los Angeles who play both kinds of music -- ska and punk. Okay, there's a little heavy metal there in the mix too, but it's just a binding agent, something to keep those springy ska verses tightly riveted to those thrashy punk choruses, not to mention a way to help the kids in the audience switch from skankin' to moshin' without having anyone throw his back out. And it did the trick a week ago Tuesday when Goldfinger played a short (45-minute), energetic set for a sweaty crowd downstairs at the Middle East, just a week before their sophomore disc Hang-Ups (Mojo/Universal) hit the stores this past Tuesday.

Bleach-blond Goldfinger frontguy John Feldmann (whose mom probably still wishes he'd gone to law school) gave due props to the Boston group he credited with inspiring the current wave of ska-core, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. "We wouldn't be here if it weren't for them," he barked. Outfitted with a new two-man horn section and a couple of dancers from the audience, Goldfinger also offered tribute to one of the seminal British outfits who cooked the Jamaican-bred rhythms of ska into something palatable for punks by closing the night with a revved up cover of the Specials' "Night Club," a classic even the teenagers in the all-ages crowd seemed to know all the words to. The band also pulled off an impromptu ska interpretation of a verse from Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" -- which wasn't really tongue-in-cheek and said as much about Goldfinger's roots as the Specials tune.

But with the release of Hang-Ups, Feldmann and his crew -- guitarist Charlie Paulson, bassist Simon Williams, and drummer Darrin Pfeiffer -- should consider spreading around another thank-you or two. The disc more or less pulls out all the stops to appeal to the broadest possible youth audience, demonstrating the kind of ambitious outlook bands working this increasingly crowded terrain require to bridge the gap between hard-working cult attraction and mainstream success. So Goldfinger borrow the snotty stomp of Green Day's "Welcome to Paradise," as well as a hint of that tune's vocal melody, for the rambunctious "Authority." Thank you, Billie Joe. And they pinch the not-so-secret recipe for earnest meat-and-sweet-potatoes punk pop that the Descendents cooked up more than a decade ago on a couple of tunes. Thank you, Milo. This one is even served up Descendents style, with an unsettling hint of meanness and a dash of wounded male ego lending a slightly sour edge to the sugary melodies, particularly on "Last Time," which hangs zooming buzz-pop hooks on the end of lines like "If I could turn back time, I'd look you in the eye, then I might see your lies."

Feldmann, who co-produced the disc, tops off the well-paced mix of tightly wound, horn-accented ska tunes ("Superman" and "Carlita") and thrashy punk numbers ("Chris Cayton" and "Disorder") by attempting what would have been a total heresy only a few years ago, before ska-core bands were heavy-rotation contenders. On the mildly ska-inflected "This Lonely Place" and "20cents Goodbye," he cleans up the guitars until they almost jangle, slows the tempo down to a decaffeinated, radio-friendly bop, overdubs some vocal harmonies, and takes a pretty damn good stab at No Doubt-style pop. Which is all fine, because originality isn't a particularly valuable commodity in the populist ska-punk economy. All that matters is connecting with the kids -- giving them what they want. And these days, in case you haven't figured it out already, the kids want both kinds of music.

-- Matt Ashare