Albums: Getting Killed

Released last September, "Getting Killed" is the 4th., studio album by Geese and produced by the band and Kenny Beats, so far, the album has been preceded by three singles "Taxes", "Trinidad" and "100 Horses". 

Geese transitioned from a quintet to a quartet after the departure of guitarist Foster Hudson, attributed to his decision to pursue academic work, With Hudson gone, Winter assumed a larger share of the guitar arrangements on the new material, then DiGesu and Green later described the lineup change as a motivating factor that compelled them to refine their collaborative approach.

Geese's collaboration with producer Kenny Beats, a.k.a. Kenneth Blume, began informally in mid-2024, when Blume encountered the band's merchandise and became curious about their work. The two met at Austin City Limits in October 2024, where Blume expressed an enthusiasm for leaving imperfections intact—an attitude Winter regarded as a rare and liberating approach for a rock-adjacent producer. Geese spent several days that November at Putnam Hill, Blume's newly built studio in Los Angeles, to develop preliminary demos. Blume initially found the material structurally chaotic, though his view shifted after hearing a solo project Winter released later that year, which clarified the songs' internal logic and convinced him of the project's potential.

The new album,  incorporates the New York band’s art-jazz and prog tendencies, definitive structures and recurrent motifs are readily employed; soundscapes unfurl more as shamanic palimpsests than flux-y improvs. In terms of songcraft and delivery, singer Cameron Winter draws from his solo 2024’s album Heavy Metal; joined by his bandmates – Emily Green, Dominic DiGesu, and Max Bassin – however, his idiosyncratic vocals and memeish lyrics take on added relevance and urgency. You have here a project that frequently sweeps the listener into a trance, ruptures that trance, and then reestablishes it. 

The opener "Trinida" features gossamer instrumentation, as Winter pivots between languid, Thom-Yorke-inspired vocals. "Cobra", with its shimmery guitars and Winter’s croon-y cum Jagger-ish vocals, conjures bygone days while striving to revise the pop playbook. "Husbands" is undergirded by a casually metronomic drumbeat and sinewy guitar parts with references to gospel, mesmeric jam, and R&B-inflected lo-fi. Also, as charged as the project is, there’s a newfound sobriety here, an embodied sense of the precarious and tragic, albeit conveyed with theatricality and/or dashes of dark humor.

The come the title track "Getting Killed" which is crunchier, initially bouncy, then more settled, the hypnotic properties of rhythm, the stirring "Bow Down"  here you have Winter addresses the fluidity of identity and perspective. The track is a funky iteration driven by an adrenalized guitar-and-drum interlock. Winter is initially deadpan, then more agitated. During the final minute, the band launch into a propulsive foray, reaching for ecstasy.  "Islands of Men" opens with a steady bass figure and gradually develops its warm atmosphere over six minutes. The track has been described as swaying boogie rock that transitions into something more ethereal as it proceeds. "100 Horses", is a rapid, high-energy piece built on repetitive, militant grooves, eans heavily into funk-inflected rhythm and percussive force.  

 

"Half Real" evokes a Tom Waits-like preacherly tone and draws on a bar-room atmosphere marked by drones reminiscent of the Velvet Underground's "Venus in Furs". The brilliant "Taxes", is propelled by an ebullient guitar and busy drum part, the instruments interwoven yet tugging against each other, creating a palpable tension. "I will break my own heart from now on", Winter declares, acknowledging that his own desires and aversions are probably the source of his crises, definitely the jewel of the crown. "Au Pays du Cocaine" adopts a gentle, swaying mood and highlights Winter's baritone, rendered in a manner akin to a post-punk crooner. Its melodic structure recalls a folk lullaby. The lyrics address a reluctant partner with lines such as "You can be free and still come home" and "Baby you can change and still choose me".

We have the closer "Long Island City Here I Come", builds in intensity and volume. The final section features Winter's voice gradually receding into a stream-of-consciousness monologue involving images such as "Microphones hidden under your bed" and apocalyptic anxieties, this is the perfect outro with many references to the Bible, pop culture, and American mythology. 

Definitely the band radicalize the conventional,  making the old sound feel fresh and new once again on this record. 

 

Getting Killed Track List:  

 

1. Trinidad

2. Cobra

3. husbands

4. Getting Killed

5. Islands Of Men  

6. 100 Horses

7. Half Real

8. Au Pays Du Cocaine

9. Bow Down

10. Taxes

11. Long Island City Here I Come