For those who don’t want to go through my long-winded ramble of Geese’s new album “Getting Killed” below and just want to get a quick nugget from my great taste in tunes, here’s your tldr: This album is goddamn tremendous. I’m enamored after just a few listens and I’m certain this is going to be a grower that gets even better with each listen, possibly continuing to get better forever until I’m dead.
And now for a more detailed, bloated, and disjointed review that ultimately doesn’t offer anything more useful than what you’ve already read:
This album is goddamn tremendous. And as mentioned above, it’s going to be a grower. Meaning, there is a lot going on in this album that won’t come out in a single listen or two. You have to keep going back to it. Similar to a Tarantino film maybe, where the first watch is just to go along for the ride, let it throw you around in the back seat for a couple hours, and when it’s over you think, “Yep, another banger from Tarantino. Although I can’t specifically say why.” And then you watch it again, and you say, “Ah yes, that’s why. Holy crap.” This album is kind of the same thing. You gotta give it a proper few listens at least.
The most immediate thing that will smack you in the face is frontman Cameron Winter’s voice. The only descriptor that I can come up with is “eccentric emotional guy, wailing.” It’s almost as if you’re at Karaoke night at a dive bar, and the sad bastard who’s been sitting alone at the bar with a crowd of empty Bud Heavy bottles and shot glasses in front of him, smoking a cigarette despite the bar being smoke-free for 20 years, groans as he pushes himself from his stool and up onto the stage to grab the karaoke mic as the DJ reluctantly queues up “Fake Plastic Trees” by Radiohead. Expecting the worst, you grimace as the drunk begins to belt the lyrics into the mic, spit hitting the table closest to him, looking like he’s moments away from breaking into tears. You turn to the stranger sitting at your table for some reason, the fair-featured one wearing a faded Belle & Sebastian t-shirt, and you whisper, “Umm, not exactly nailing a Thom York impression, is he?” and the stranger holds his finger to his lips to shush you, which pisses you off, and he says, “No, and why would he? He’s nailing it in his own way.” And you think to yourself, “Ok, actually yeah, this guy is wailing and emoting so hard that he’s about to pop or poop and… well hell, it’s working…” And you turn back to the stranger to acknowledge it, and he’s just looking at you, smiling smugly as if he deserves credit for some reason. And he says, “There’s an essence of Thom Yorke, though, wouldn’t you say? With some notes of Tom Waits from Frank’s Wild Years, no?” And you get up and move to another table because fuck that stranger, but still, maybe not a terrible way to put it you guess. And then the drunk finishes wailing out his song, coughs, and sits down, and the next singer takes the mic and you hear the starting chords to Brown Eyed Girl again and you’re reminded why you hate Karaoke night so much.
Anyway, it’s a unique voice. And may take some getting used to. Which many folks already have, thanks to the last Geese album which was also great, and Cameron Winter’s spectacular recent solo album. Just like Tom Waits, some folks will likely be thrown off by his vocal style when they first hear it, but for those who stick around, they are gifted by not just a unique voice that grows on them until other bands start to sound too vanilla for their newly enlightened ass, but they also discover the insanely great music right behind it. And shortly thereafter, they’ve become true nerds for the band and are annoying to talk to at parties. In writing this, I’m reminded of another wonderful “Weird Voice Great Band” band: RUSH. Some folks still continue to deny the greatness of RUSH to this day, and I don’t know why they choose to fight that fight, and it saddens me that they’re going to burn in hell.
But anyway, I put Geese in the “Weird Voice Great Band” category with legends like Waits and RUSH and then I take note that it’s a band of young folk. Like, you could stack two Cameron Winters on top of one another and they’d still be younger than my old ass, I think. So, when you listen to this album, observe how naturally funky and soulful it is, and realize that they pulled this off without 40+ years of alcoholism. It’s kinda prodigy-level rock n roll, if you ask me. And please do understand that I’m no overly educated Pitchwork-writing music theorist who knows what a guitar does, I’m just a mildly pretentious shithead with amazing taste in music who obnoxiously name checks respected bands in a desperate attempt to prove it. Forgive me for that, as I’m highly caffeinated and have had a couple beers.
And while I’m embarrassing myself with compulsive name checks and a style of pretension reserved only for the truly uncool/unhip/old, let’s keep going: One other thing that came to mind was, like other classic/popular weirdos, Ween and Beck, these guys clearly know how to write catchy hooks, and then choose (or are compelled) to build upon and tweak them until they’re just weird enough that you won’t get proper enjoyment with casual listening. You have to pay attention. And when you do, you’ll be very properly stoked.
To be honest, I actually don’t like comparing good bands to other good bands. It just feels kinda derivative(?) and takes away from the band’s unique creation. But man in this case I am purposely doing it because I do believe these guys deserve some comparisons to some of the great originalists (did I make that word up?) out there, while also acknowledging the originalness of their album. It’s an album clearly made by a merry band of craftsmen, rockers, jammers, and weirdos, and I’m fired up on it. I expect that I’ll soon be the annoying old guy who gets a beer buzz and then insists that people listen to this “one song on my phone” and plays them multiple songs from this album until his spouse yanks him away. Once I did something similar at a bar and made a poor college kid watch the beach dance scene from Fellini’s La Dolce Vida.
Well I’ve painted a horrible picture of myself and done a shit job of describing the album. That’s on you, not me, actually. I warned you. You didn’t need to read this whole thing, but you did. So get off my back. Go check out the album because it’s awesome. And so is this review and you know it.
Leave a Reply