One of the wildest shows I’ve ever been to was a Goodbye Honolulu show. It was late autumn last year. The band was playing at Alphaville, one of Bushwick’s best hidden dive bars, on a Monday night. There was something strange in the air at that show. I left the main room to talk to someone, and came back to find Hinds onstage, joining the band in an impromptu duet of “Bum Me Out.” The next morning, I found out that Selena Gomez was in the crowd, her go-to sweatshirt/sweatpants concert outfit making front page news across various online publications.
As crazy as all of that was, Goodbye Honolulu’s performance was what truly floored me. The Toronto-based rock band (Jacob Switzer, Emmett S. Webb, and Fox Martindale on guitar/bass/vocals, Max Bornstein on drums/vocals) know how to get a crowd going, their energy and enthusiasm prevailing over everything. Heavy Gold (released April 11 via the band’s own Fried Records) stays true to that. A compilation of some of the band’s first recordings dating back to 2015, Heavy Gold is the ultimate look into one of the grooviest bands in the Ontario area...and elsewhere.
Goodbye Honolulu loves to keep it as real as they can. The band recorded most of the tracks on Heavy Gold live, with all four members playing together in the same room over the course of a few days. That rawness shines through in every single song—whether it’s the trickling guitar in headbanger “Bum Me Out” or the surf rock riffs of “Hardly Speaking—creating the garage atmosphere that drew me to them in the first place. Old favorite “Lorry Can’t Love” sounds even more cryptic this time around; the kind of all-over-the-place that works. When the screams of, “I can’t wait to burn in Hell!” start, you’ll feel those vocals rattle in your bones.
Heavy Gold only builds up as it progresses. It’s easy to lose yourself in the screeching guitar (and slurred French) on “Le Mans” or the breakneck beat of “No Fear,” feeling whisked back to various 70’s punk scenes. “Fever” is an entire journey in itself, groovy bassline luring you in before slamming into an infectious chorus. “Another Weirdo” is the party anthem for the misunderstood (“Sometimes I wonder if I’m wasting my time” hits harder these days than ever before). Everything feeds off of each other, the full band recordings crucial for the chaos of these tracks. The theremin solo in “Slip Inside Your Mind” shoots you into a fever dream, before ending in one last shredding solo.
I’m more than a little biased in this review, as I think Goodbye Honolulu are one of the best bands in the underground rock scene right now. Despite that, Heavy Gold is a gift that surprises us all, bringing back the penultimate garage sound that fills every inch of you. Though early takes, Goodbye Honolulu still control their sound with stride, providing a solid tracklist of songs to lose your mind to. Listening to Heavy Gold will make you feel like you’re at the weirdest show of your life, screaming and crowd surfing with the best of them. Until we’re back to experiencing those nights again, this album is the next best thing.
Stream the album here.
Words by Carly.
