It read "Geese: A real band". It’s a title that invites questions. What makes Geese a real band? What gives Geese the right to declare themselves a real band? Which bands aren’t real bands? It could be viewed as a wry piece of post-irony among Zoomers. That reading only works if you haven’t heard Getting Killed. Because Getting Killed is the sort of album that separates the chaff from the wheat. The type of album that makes you reconsider the last album you considered great. The last band you saw live that you thought killed it. The last song you sent to a friend. It leaves you wondering if any of it was actually good.
When Geese toured their last album, 3D Country, the projection read "An American Band" because that’s what they were then, a group of incredibly forward-thinking classic rock revivalists. If there’d been a projection for their first album, Projector, it would’ve said "A New York Band" due to their debut's mix of CBGB’s post-punk with the math rock it inspired. But Getting Killed is the work of "a real band" or at the very least a band not hiding behind pastiche. It’s Geese at their most honest and sincere, and as a result, their most brilliant, creative, and manic.
While the release of his much-acclaimed solo debut Heavy Metal has clearly left lead singer Cameron Winter even stronger in both vocals and lyrics than before that record's success, it hasn’t caused Geese to play backup to him. Rather, the rest of the band has grown with him. Producer Kenny Beats has brought the rhythm section to the forefront, revealing them to be Geese’s strongest element. Dominic DiGesu’s basslines are more prominent than ever, combining a delirious boogie funk with a raw and enticing tone. While drummer Max Bassin has always appeared to be of a higher class than most, Beats really lets him shine. On “Trinidad”, he makes the kit sound like an imploding submarine as it rattles against Winter’s explosive vocals. Yet to view the players separately is to reduce their impact. Getting Killed is an album built around a band; their unity creates its best moments.
The band is operating tighter than ever, their core style
now a sort of motorik-funk, with Winter’s gospel vocals combining with
rhythms that lie somewhere between Can and Funkadelic. On tracks like
“Bow Down” and “100 Horses”, they unite into a marching stomp that
recalls the grizzled trample of the Bad Seeds and the junkyard blues of
Tom Waits. Yet the band really reaches its peak when it extends these
jams past the four-minute limit. Title track “Getting Killed” is close
to their finest work ever, with its initial crunch giving way to guitar
interplay and a heartbreaking coda of chanted vocals as Winter howls the
track and album’s title.
Yet the two other big jams come close to dethroning its
excellence. “Islands of Men" starts as a piece of swaying boogie rock
before reforming into something ethereal, a slice of dream rock grounded
by a flurry of horns and percussion that gives way into chaos. But the
real pinnacle is the album's closer “Long Island City Here I Come”. It’s
initial ripple of drums and keys combine with Winter’s ramblings about "God having many friends" and "Microphones hidden under your bed" to
seem like a surreal reimagining of Patti Smith’s "Piss Factory". Yet
rather than switching tactics like the others the groove simply
continues. A thrush of additional instruments compliments Winters vocals
as they reach new apexes. His lyrics contort a series of absurdist
tales into a bizarrely inspirational message of desperate youth and hope
as he cries out "Long Island City, here I come."
But these moments of magnitude aren’t what make Getting
Killed a masterpiece. Rather, it’s the way they fit together. The way a
line as tender as "Baby let me dance away forever" can feel appropriate
after the neo-no-wave car wreck of “Trinidad”. The way that “Au Pays du Cocaine” sways on such a tender breeze. It’s how all those Winter’s
lyrics, their delightful mix of tender love calls, historical
anachronism, and biblical imagery, all come together to turn the joyous
heartland ballad "Taxes" crushingly tragic when he says, "I will break
my own heart from now on." Like the band that made it, Getting Killed is
an album of insane synchronicity, its individual elements rocketing one
another into new stratospheres. If Geese are a real band, then Getting
Killed is a real album. One that cements them as no longer excellent
imitators of the bands they once tipped their hats to, but worthy
equals.
