45:35 // September 26, 2025 // Partisan Records
Geese’s last album, 2023’s 3D Country, received a laudatory reception from plenty of voices I respect, but it never really became my thing. That record is undoubtedly strong with some standout moments, but my overall feeling was that it was “weird for the sake of being weird”, which is a tone in the world of music that I rarely gravitate towards.
Well, follow-up LP Getting Killed certainly isn’t any more straightforward in approach, but Geese have made a believer out of me on this one. This is one of those albums which feels like the artist is making an absolute statement at all times - probably sometimes intentionally and sometimes not - but there’s an air of authority about these songs. There’s quite a diversity of styles, from the noisy energy all the way to the sappy balladry, but every approach is delivered in a slightly over-the-top manner which imitates (and mocks) the absurdity of the modern world, and this feeling is only accentuated by the lyricism, which consistently offers witheringly barbed critiques and skewers targets at will.
There are times I have no idea what vocalist Cameron Winter is going on about, and his style is as wonderfully (?) bizarre as ever, but man are there a lot of quotable lines here. They can flow from snarling rage and disgust in one moment to absolutely moving vulnerability in another, but I’ll let you discover your own personal lyrical gems for yourself. Therefore, “let me dance away”, as Winter sings in the delightfully serene “Cobra”, and touch on broader subjects.
While there are a few tracks in the first half of the tracklist, notably “Husbands” and “Islands of Men” which feel less standout, this eleven song collection overall exhibits both remarkable quality and an impressive ability to cohere despite the sonic diversity present. Opener “Trinidad” serves as a proper introduction, its funky rhythms and mad preacher vocals rendered instantly memorable via the screamed mantra of “there’s a bomb in my car”. Tracks like the aforementioned “Cobra” and the elegant “Taxes” are melodic earworms. The title track and the sinister “100 Horses”, meanwhile, are more “out there” but retain the album’s persistent feeling of groove and jam-y energy. The second half duo of “Half Real” and “Au Pays du Cocaine” adopt an exaggerated ballad style which reminds of a bizarro-world rendition of early Tom Waits croonery, but it simply works, while their counterpart “Bow Down” relies (successfully) on jittering rhythms to remain engaging.
Then there’s the closer, “Long Island City Here I Come”, which feels as monumental as the final track on an album like this should. It fuses together the defining threads of this memorable record - off-kilter strangeness, instrumental appeal, and wild quotability. Also, its final lines are about as lovely a kiss-off to this preposterous journey as you could ask for - “I have no idea where I’m going, here I come”. What more is there to say? I guess only this - music leaning upon this kind of dramatic approach to lyrics and themes which is easily adopted as critique of contemporary society often invites over-celebration upon release without much consideration of whether the songs will possess any staying power. This may be true in many cases, but I’m confident Getting Killed is the real deal - if this album slightly falters in a few spots, the large majority of the tracks here have immense value to offer, only get better with further listens, and should stand out positively among the assorted indie fare of the era. Give it a try - just be prepared for a whole lot of brilliance wrapped up in a meandering, raving package - after all, look around, there’s lunacy everywhere.
9.0/10