It’s coming up to that time of year when geese disappear to warmer climes for the winter. Or not. Depends on who you read. More recently they are sticking around as winters are milder and there’s still an abundance of food. It certainly feels like prime feeding ground for Geese right now. No need to depart for Winter.
Over the past 12 months the clamour for them and Cameron Winter has been approaching fever pitch. He released his solo LP Heavy Metal at the end of 2024 with zero backlift to avoid fanfare and bury it in the Wraps and Lists of December. Didn’t work. The band struck up and blew him hither and yon including spellbinding TV performances such as on Later…..
Instead he took himself and his band off to record this, Getting Killed.
We’ve reached a point in the ever evolving behaviour of the human where fandom and obsessive interest in bands is putting the blinkers on the binfire going on around them. The kids aren’t alright but they’re pretending they are and going apeshit for rock’n’rolll again. In whatever guise that may take.
If you take the swagger, the long unclean-in-a-mega-cool-way hair, vintage t-shirts, jeans and distressed sneakers of The Strokes, the smarts and musical prowess of Vampire Weekend, and the punk, guerilla attitude to shambolic gigs of the NYC 70’s, then you are getting close to the Geese aesthetic.
Influences are too many mention, a melting pot of genres with Winter’s unique and unusual vocal delivery carrying it all in a slightly psychedelic way. Psych in that you are disoriented and a bit woozy. In a nice and gentle way. But then in a psychotic and frenzied way. And then in a hazy dream-like way. Basically, it’s aural magic mushrooms. It’s rewiring your cerebral cortex, its messing with your concept of reality and what is or isn’t rock ‘n’ roll.
Who knows what rock ‘n’ roll is these days. It’s whatever the kids want it to be. Because thats who it belongs to. Not old fuckers like this scribe, scribbling alway at his meaningless little review.
This collection of songs deviates between time signatures, tossing them aside as if they are a complete inconvenience to the song writing process. There is reggae, there is funk, there is punk, there is rock, there is tribal chanting, there is math rock. They wig out, but not for too long. They have riffs and hooks but it side steps wanky overindulgence.
There are nods to the chaotic parts of Exile On Main Street, there are elements when piano keys are being roughhoused that conjures Ben Folds Five, there are wonky, bonkers Hail To The Thief rhythms and textures. Mostly its utterly intoxicating. The production comes from hip hopper Kenny Beats and it is noticeable in its concentration on drums and percussion. Guitars are almost just the wallflower in the background, sounding pretty but they aren’t the main event, except on some of the more standard structured songs like ‘Taxes’ .
Where commercial radio and even some more alternative stations playlists are starting to resemble a tub of Cornish clotted cream, Geese are laying eggs of avant garde, melodic, bonkers pop songs. Quackers.
