Geese

One Liner:  Wild NYC art rock with a few too much dissonance for my taste

Wikipedia Genre:  post-punk, indie rock, art punk

Home: Brooklyn

Poster Position: 13
Both Weekends
Saturday at 1:35.

T-Mobile.

Thoughts:  Confusing me, in that I got excited seeing this thinking that Goose was coming back to the Fest.  Dangit.  Complete first impression on the first hit is that this is the singer from the New Radicals who got tired of singing about how you have to get what you give.

These cats are based in Brooklyn, and I think you can hear it in every song.  Fun origin story though: They formed in high school up in Brooklyn, and recorded an album during the pandemic.  As graduation neared, and several of them were looking to graduate and head off to Berklee and Oberlin, they figured that they would break up.  But then their demos started to get some attention from record labels, and they ended up making a go of it.  Now they've become the latest saviors of NYC rock – touring the world, performing on late night television, and creating significant industry buzz with their run of gigs at SXSW in 2022. All before they could even drink legally at a club where they are jamming.

That 2021 album, Projector, is so much better for my tastes.  Recorded in their basement from 2019 to 2020.  Like a Parquet Courts kind of garage rock album with loose edges and a little funky feel.  Meanwhile, the more popular 2023 album 3D Country can be painful.  "3D Country" is just weird.  Like a lounge singer trying to sound like the classic Rolling Stones in a dilapidated Vegas cocktail bar before he passes out in a pool of his own vomit, complete with the background singers and sloppy piano.  "Undoer" gets some Radiohead vibes like when Thom Yorke just starts yelling long words over a blasting, unnerving guitar line from Greenwood.  Way too much screaming and dissonance for me, and I love a little well-placed screaming in a song.  It's not all terrible by any means, its just that even an otherwise solid song like the album opener "2122" can go from a good, tight, little rock song into a soundscape freakout.  Shafts the groove for me.  Makes me wish this really was Goose!

Top track is from that new album - "Cowboy Nudes" - which I think I have heard on the radio a few times.  4.5 million streams.

Maybe the fact that is their top song will help them realize that they can make nice rock songs instead of adding in terrifying dissonance and screaming.  Those people in the video are scary tho!  The only tune in their top ten right now that is not from that 2023 album is a new single from 2024 called "Jesse" - I'll give you that so you can see if the new sound is catching on.  679k.

Well, now that I lured you in with two songs that sound pretty sweet, I am obligated to also give you one of the terrifying ones.  Here is "Undoer."

Wow.  Yeah.  7 minutes punctuated with pain.  Now, I will say that I pulled up a live set of them from Rolling Stone's studio, and it sounds pretty solid.  If you want a little more, that can be your source.

He gets a little animated at times with the vocals, but it is nothing like the stuff he is wailing on the album.  Dunno.  This will be a gametime decision for me, depending on who they are against.  On the one hand, I can't be choosy with rock bands because they are few and far between.  On the other hand, not sure how this will hit.