Geese (2026)

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: TOP Quarter: Line 2
Both Weekends
Sunday at 6:30

T-Mobile Stage.

Thoughts:  Last here in 2024, which is a pretty quick turnaround for a top line band.  Annoying.  So, pretty easy write-up because I can just combine the write-up I did in 2024 with the recent write-up I did of their whack new album.

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, it's 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.  14.5 million streams (up from 4.5 million in 2024).

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!  Well, now that I lured you in with a sorta sweet song, 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.  

Then, their 2025 album took them to new heights in the catalog of bands who people either love or hate.  Geese - Getting Killed.  So, these guys have annoyed me just because they got popular at the same time as Goose, which confuses my old brain, and I wish they would have chosen a different name.  No, I don't know which came first.  But they have more generally annoyed the world as well, or at least if you believe the Internet headlines.  Their SNL performance was the source of a lot of backlash and derision. I read a quote that their lead singer sounds like "Chewbacca doing opera" which is really mean but also funny. A friend reached out to ask what I thought, I mentioned I had not tried them yet, and he said "it's fine if you like improvisational jazz but want more screaming."  So, of course, I have to try it.

I will tell you what, I have not dug into the online hatred much other than just seeing headlines or tweets or whatever, but the initial song is an absolutely miserable experience.  "Trinidad" sounds like four jazz musicians made their own, unrelated songs, tried playing them together without practice, and then the lead singer just decided to scream "THERES A BOMB IN MY CAR" over and over.  Truly awful.  Meanwhile, the title track is a funky little groove and I mostly enjoy it.  So, hard to say overall.  The lead singer doesn't give me Chewie vibes, he sounds more like late-stage Thom Yorke mixed with the guy who sang for The New Radicals.  It is a deeply annoying voice, especially when he yells/screams.  His voice cracks repeatedly, which is like, you could have a good voice?  Or use it in a good way?  Why are you like this?  "Au Pays du Cocaine" is the top streamer with 16.3 million spins (now up to 26.5 million).

Maybe it's just the least offensive tune on the album so people send it to their friends as an example to get them hooked.  That baby is really cute though.  I will not retain this album.  Good luck to all the people who love it.

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 that I want to hurt myself like this.