Day 169: Geese – Getting Killed

I’ve been putting off listening to Geese despite hearing lots of raving about them from people whose musical opinions I respect, surely to do with some sort of an authority issue. What would Freud say? I’m sure we all know, but he’s a strange little fella so I don’t think we should listen to him all that much, I’m more Jungian anyway. Today’s album is the much hyped and raved-about Getting Killed by Geese.

Album cover courtesy of Partisan Records

Geese were formed in 2016 by a group of four high school friends from Brooklyn. They got signed during the height of the pandemic after almost breaking up when the band members were going to go to college, but Covid scuppered their plans and they decided to keep the band going.

It feels like I’d never heard of these guys and all of a sudden they were everywhere, but just like in most cases of overnight success, they’d been quietly grinding for years. Getting Killed is the group’s fourth album, having released their debut in 2018. They got bigger after their singer-songwriter Cameron Winter got a lot of traction for his solo album Heavy Metal in 2024. A month after he released his solo, they started recording Getting Killed.

Listening to it, I unfortunately have to admit that the hipsters were right, again. None of the hype is unwarranted. It’s hard to resist the temptation that lots of music writers have fallen into of just going “Wooooooooohooo, we’re back, we’re so back baby!” because they are without a doubt so good that they feel like the start of something. Everyone says it, but it feels like the younger generation hasn’t had a good era for rock bands. Geese could be it.

The album has mostly young and confused jazz-inspired no wave or art rock that’s slightly out there but infinitely accessible. The whole album leaves you feeling a little bit hyped up. Primarily, I think that’s because of Cameron Winter’s songwriting, which is really the icing on the cake when it comes to Geese. It was recorded in ten days with Kenneth Blume, or Kenny Beats, who has previously produced a wide range of hip hop and alternative artists, and there’s something about it where they’ve managed to capture the energy of seeing a band like this live.

Also, I got a kick out of the singer describing the individual members of the gaggle as “All super fucking undiagnosed autistic, terrible hangs,” a description which genuinely made me think “yippee” – I’ve missed having rock stars who aren’t such Instagram-ready charisma machines. We should reject modernity (slick, polished TikTok-ready musicians) and embrace tradition (unsociable talented basement dwellers), I just think that’s where we went wrong.

I was a bit late to the party but I am now also a goose, or whatever they call their admirers. Getting Killed is a 9/10.