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You might not realise it, but you've changed in the past ten years: older, wiser, more forgettable, mellower, fatter, balder, whatever. For some the differences may be subtle, but it's undeniable — you're no longer exactly the same person you were in 1995.

So too Arno Carstens is no longer the young punk of South African rock who, with his little band the Springbok Nude Girls, was starting to burn up South Africa with wildly inventive rock anarchy. In the past decade, that anger and gut-wrenching intensity in his music has gradually been replaced by a maturity and subtlety that comes with a decade's worth of growing up.

What hasn’t changed though is the passion. Lush string arrangements and acoustic guitars are now as commonplace in his music as the screamed distorted vocals and monster riffs once were — yet Carstens hasn’t gone soft on us. The jagged edges may have been chiselled down, but he hasn’t forgotten that there was once bubblegum on his boots.

'Hole Heart' is all the evidence you need: the singer (and his collaborators Brendan Jury and Albert Frost) have refined all the shout-along characteristics of his earliest hits into a near-perfect serving of catchy radio rock that's easily the best South African song you'll hear in a helluva long time.

It's also easily the best song on 'The Hello Goodbye Boys', an album that further refines and polishes the mainstream sound of Carstens' debut solo outing 'Another Universe'.

Unfortunately that does mean Jury's prodigious viola playing and Frost's blistering guitar work are sometimes masked — or replaced by — Jury's keyboards and elaborate orchestral sections that occasionally threaten to smother the songs.

'Feel It' — which daringly opens the album not with a bang but a gentle caress — is almost overwrought by the swathe of string instruments. But in a testament to the skills of the writing partnership that is Carstens, Frost and Jury, it doesn’t succumb, lifted up by a chorus that's sheer genius.

It's a trait that's shared by most of the songs on offer here — they're just so damn catchy they’re more difficult to evict from your brain than an alcoholic from a bar.

The hyperactive 'Kites', which grows from spacey keyboards into a flurry of acoustic guitars and some trademark blues licks from Frost will take up residence in your brain alongside the soaring title track, and the African flavoured 'Man and the Lion', which sounds closest to the songs of 'Another Universe'.

But it's not all pop-straight-into-your-head stuff on offer here — there are a couple of challengers that grow on you over time. The storming Nude Girls flavoured 'Birds and the Bees' may not be quite as easy to digest as the mellow 'Life Forever', but that doesn’t make it any less impressive.

And like the country flavour of 'Love The Whole World' — that periodically breaks out into a synth and electric guitar fest — it may sound a little out of place but serves a vital role in adding variety to an album that could do with a touch more grit.

Or maybe I'm still stuck in 1995.