Over the summer of 2024, I saw the up-and-coming indie rock band Geese open for King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, who had an electrifying set at a former racing track in East Boston. Geese though, they kind of sucked. The goofy visuals behind them and covers of songs like “Out of Time” by the Rolling Stones did not really catch my attention as I stood in line for merch. By the time I made it over to the stage, they were just sort of noodling around whilst Gizzheads around me sipped IPAs and dropped acid. They just did not sound that good, which I have heard contributes to their mediocre reputation at outdoor venues, as opposed to the cramped hole-in-the-walls of Brooklyn they began in, where they apparently bring a lot more energy.
What they did have, though, and I noticed even then, was personality. Frontman Cameron Winter, even without the attention and charisma he has gained much of over the last year, still commanded the stage. He was a center of attention whilst crooning over the songs from the band’s last album “3D Country”—along with a loose demo for some song about taxes. The rest of the outfit exuded some kind of mix between a “Scooby-Doo”-esque friend group and a great band you see once in an Allston basement before they break up to focus on their studies at Berklee College of Music.
Fast forward to Winter, coming off of a more personal and blues-inspired approach in his solo album “Heavy Metal,” who has catapulted Geese to the level of success a New York rock band has not fully achieved since Julian Casablancas left behind his familial wealth for the streets of Alphabet City, beginning the early days of The Strokes. Geese’s new record, “Getting Killed,” could be an easy coronation, but it is not fully. Instead of sticking to the generically early 2020s sound of “3D Country”—a tight but somewhat amateur mix of “twee” indie rock with a soft edge of raucous country—“Getting Killed” has a very new but still approachable sound. Maybe the band has compromised on themselves in their new album in a few ways, and even the scene they hope to spearhead as well.
It takes a lot of guts to open your album with “Trinidad,” a track that, from the first seconds, introduces an element paramount to all of “Getting Killed”: heavy bass. It is lumbering in the mix and, along with the looser approach on drums and guitar riffs, brings an attempted “art-rock” sensibility to the sound of nearly every song on the album. Back to “Trinidad,” it is a warning by the band that they are past most of their former naivety, with riffs popping in and out of the mix as Winter both hilariously and menacingly screams, “There’s a bomb in my car!” It slowly builds up to a growling bridge that, by the time it and the song have ended, leaves the listener with a level of subtle awe. Is it kind of an “indie band tries to sound more experimental than they fundamentally are” song? Absolutely, no question about that. It is still an impressive display of production—especially in mixing—and artistic intent. Similarly, it is bold to end the album with “Long Island City Here I Come,” a longer and more expansive journey of a track that sees Winter toy around with his strained vocals and storytelling in ways I hope the band expands on in future projects.
Things are more relaxed for most of the middle of the album, as “Cobra” takes on a honky-tonk beat with lingering bluesy vocals, satisfying melodic harmonization and drooping guitar. Heavy bass and varied percussion, especially bongos, lay the foundation for jumpy, excited tracks like “100 Horses” and “Getting Killed,” with the highlight of this section being the slowly built-up “Islands of Men.” Vocally, especially in these more languid tracks, it becomes insanely clear—at least to me—that Winter may be the biggest Lou Reed fan since Andy Warhol. The euphoria of his singing on “3D Country” is now a growling yearning, especially noticeable on tracks like “Husbands” and “Bow Down.” This is nothing new if you listened to “Heavy Metal,” and this project pulls heavily in more ways than that from Winter’s solo work. There is a sense, almost apropos of older folksy Bob Dylan, that Winter is really trying to say something on a lot of tracks, like his statement that “there is only dance music in times of war” in “100 Horses.” At times, this album clicks very, very well. However it does have its flaws.
The sound Geese went for in this album, largely produced by Kenny Beats, can be unfocused and, at times, messy. This was clearly a goal of the band after the tightness of past songs like “I See Myself” or “Cowboy Nudes” from their previous album, but it has mixed results. As an avid fan of noodling, I will not harp on the band for trying to open up the mix, but it can really feel unguided. These songs are just not long enough to fully capture the expansive noises they are trying to develop. This stands starkly opposed to something that Geese wants more than anything: to be the pre-eminent band of something I would loosely call the “Bushwick scene.”
There is a reason people like albums such as “Manning Fireworks” by MJ Lenderman—it sticks to a singular sound and genre in a music landscape where the popular sound has become intrinsically mangled with so many differing influences to attract the most amount of listeners. At its very, very worst, “Getting Killed” thinks it is jamming when, in reality, it is a “monogenre-ization” of the indie rock scene as it currently stands. Not sure what to put in the back? Layer Winter whining and add in a bunch of bongos with a vague Latin influence. Not sure how to really add flow to the track? Tight riffs are back in “3D Country”; now Geese have to do a melodic guitar section you could get better from any current psych-rock outfit. This album needed—if they really wanted to pull off the art-rock and “voice of a generation” gimmick they hoped to achieve as a band—Geese to keep the sound tighter.
This is not to say they should have experimented less. In fact, they need to experiment more. “Trinidad” and “Bow Down” truly stand out because the mix is toyed with and the traditional structures are left behind. It is also blasphemous that Winter, after an entire album displaying how his vocal style is perfect with the piano, decided to barely include the instrument at all in this project. There is a reason the emotional high point of this project is “Au Pays Du Cocaine”: It cuts out the unneeded noise and focuses entirely on a somber story which Winter ponders over before the track collapses on a noisy build-up that, comically, sounds to me a lot like “White Light/White Heat” by The Velvet Underground.
This is a good album, do not get me wrong. It sounds fresh, has some great lyrics courtesy of Winter’s prolific pen and has some true highlights. It is interesting how the album begins with a fiery declaration in “Trinidad” and ends in “Long Island City Here I Come,” a track that actually gives the percussion and Winter’s vocals time and space to really rise and fall. Throughout, there are some tracks that will definitely pass the test of time and make their way onto indie playlists for years to come. There are plenty of moments the band creates that give the “I cannot wait to mosh to when I see them in Brooklyn next month” feel. What, in my eyes, Geese needs to do to truly achieve the stewardship over this emerging indie rock scene that they so deeply desire is to be more like King Gizzard and not be afraid. Forget the critics, forget the punks in Bushwick and forget the pulls of the monogenre in modern music. Experiment and push until your art is truly yours and your sound belongs to you and no one else.