As soon as they decided to split up, Brooklyn’s Geese found themselves in great demand. Upon meeting in high school, the quintet – a stylish melange of all you’d expect of a quintessentially street-sharp New York City rock band – had happened upon an appealing strain of angularly-inclined, guitar-based concision (part-Velvets, part-Television, part-Strokes) while thrashing about in their drummer’s basement.
With separate college courses hoving over the near horizon, the band spent their final year of school cobbling together a self-produced farewell recording for posterity. Upon its completion, at the exact moment Geese expected to disband, their simultaneous debut/swansong instituted a wholly unexpected record company bidding war. In the midst of a global pandemic.
“It was a weird time,” recalls vocalist Cameron Winter. “Labels started discovering us just as the pandemic picked up. So one part of my life was going to heights I’d never anticipated, even as all the other parts were crumbling completely.”
Much to the chagrin of several sets of parents, Geese never made it to college. Then again, courtesy of covid, they didn’t exactly make it out on the road either. In demand but still unsigned, their red-hot debut album (ultimately released as Projector) languishing in the the can, Geese – completed by guitarists Foster Hudson and Gus Green, bassist Dominic DiGesu and drummer Max Bassin – set to work writing material for their second album, 3D Country.
Being shackled to the studio wasn’t without its frustrations, but neither was it without its advantages: “Not being able to play gigs probably saved us,” Cameron admits, “(Labels) had to go off our painstakingly edited studio recordings. If they’d seen us play a show they’d have realised ‘these kids have no actual idea what they’re doing’.”
During lockdown, Geese drilled themselves into quite the crack band. With a two-year buffer within which to hone their songwriting chops they crafted an assured successor to the intuitive art-rock of Projector. 3D Country adds soulful maturity to Geese’s intrinsic edginess, and as the Green/Hudson guitars seamlessly entwine (never lapsing into haphazard blues-based noodling cliché), Winter’s unmistakable vocal sparks with stratospheric levels of dramatic affectation.
“This album might end up being the craziest my vocals ever get, because I’m starting to see the value of deploying craziness a little more sparingly… Trying to get as dumb as possible without reaching the threshold of stupid.”
So what are Geese? Many have called them post-punk. “I wasn’t even alive for the post-punk revival,” smiles Gus.
Ah well, maybe they’re just brilliant. But are they mainstream ready?
“Totally!” blurts Gus, “I want a snazzy beach house before I’m thirty-five.”
3D Country is out now on Partisan Records
