Geese

Getting Killed (2025)

Produced by Kenny Beats — known primarily for hip-hop, which is directly audible in the emphasis on drums and the weight of the low-end — Getting Killed builds its post-punk and art-rock framework over a rhythmic foundation more indebted to funk than to Ian Curtis's Manchester. 'Trinidad,' the opener, announces the record's ambitions immediately: a 13/8 time signature, Cameron Winter's vocals pitched between crooner and scream, guitars cutting in and out like a malfunctioning circuit. The New Yorker and Stereogum both named it their album of the year for 2025.

Sleeve notes

Getting Killed · 2025

Geese are a Brooklyn band who formed when their members were still in high school, and Projector (2021) — their debut, released when they were mostly eighteen or nineteen — is either precocious in a good way or precocious in the slightly uncomfortable way, depending on how you respond to records that seem to have read more than they've lived. The art-rock ambitions are real: song structures that change time signatures and register without warning, guitar textures that move between delicacy and noise, a general willingness to sprawl.

Cameron Winter's lyrics, dense with references and affected in ways that are sometimes productive, give the record an identity that distinguishes it from mere proficiency. 3D Country (2023) found them expanding further, adding pedal steel and a broader Americana palette that suggested the sound was still in formation. Geese are a band worth watching: whether they make good on the early promise depends partly on what they do with the obvious influences they're still carrying.