Geese are Flying High
Geese opening for King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard at The Dell Music Center in Philadelphia on Aug. 27, 2024.Photo courtesy of Lygonstreet via Wikimedia Commons
On Sep. 26, the four-piece Brooklyn, New York rock band, Geese, released their third studio album, “Getting Killed,” garnering rave reviews from a plethora of critics and publications.
Receiving a 9.0 rating from the revered but also controversial Pitchfork and a coveted “decent to strong 8” from The Needle Drop, also known as Anthony Fantano, Geese has solidified itself as a strong coalition of musicians among music’s pickiest critics.
The band, which GQ described as “America’s most thrilling young rock band,” is composed of frontman Cameron Winter, drummer Max Bassin, guitarist Emily Green and bassist Dominic DiGesu, all 23 years old.
Winter, Green and Bassin, who all met at Park Slope Rock School in Brooklyn at a young age, had been playing music together for several years before the conception of Geese. At 14, Bassin and Winter built a makeshift studio in the basement of Bassin’s mother’s home to begin early recordings.
Green, who asked if she could join the band, began visiting the basement studio and recording with Winter and Bassin. It was at the Little Red School House in Manhattan where Green met DiGesu and invited him to stop by the studio, and in 2016, Geese was officially formed.
The career trajectory of Geese is admirable, as they released their first studio album, “Projector,” in 2021, their sophomore album, “3D Country,” in 2023 and have been on a successful upward incline ever since, especially now with the release of the commended “Getting Killed.”
“Projector” takes more of an indie-rock approach with its sound, “3D Country” fuses blues and classic rock and “Getting Killed” includes elements of jazz influence and incorporates bizarre lyrics such as “THERE’S A BOMB IN MY CAR,” from the album opener, “Trinidad.”
Additionally, Cameron Winter released his debut solo project, “Heavy Metal,” in December 2024, which was met with critical acclaim. The solo record is a more stripped-back singer-songwriter album, accompanied by Winter’s signature baritone voice that has earned him comparisons to Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits.
The unprecedented success of “Heavy Metal” produced more buzz around the band, allowing “Getting Killed” to amass widespread attention, win over the harshest of critics and gain fans across several generations.
The band has breathed new life into the genre of rock, such as other bands like Fontaines D.C. and Amyl and the Sniffers, who have also accumulated large followings in the past few years.
Their appeal as a young, scrappy-looking group of musicians from New York City who deliver electric live performances is reminiscent of that of The Strokes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, giving hope to a sort of new rock revival that could emerge from the city.
Currently on tour supporting their most recent record, Geese have done covers of songs by The Velvet Underground and have incorporated interludes and jams of songs by The Stooges into their own pieces, emitting a punk spirit at their live shows.
Geese are set to play at the intimate Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock, New York, on Nov. 15, where face value tickets started at roughly $50 and are being resold at upwards of $800.
The exponential rise of Geese and the booking of smaller venues for this tour accounts for this type of price gouging to occur, showing just how unparalleled the band’s success is and how much of an impact they’ve made within the music scene at such a young age.
Geese’s cohesiveness as a group has enabled them to launch into the stardom they are currently experiencing, and the group will only continue to gain popularity and sell out shows as more eyes and ears are exposed to the band.