The r/indieheads Album of the Year 2025 Write-Up Series: Geese - Getting Killed
Hello folks! Welcome to the first day of the r/indieheads Album of the Year 2025 Write-Up Series! This is our annual event where we showcase written pieces from a selection of r/indieheads users discussing some of their favorite records of the year! We'll be running through the bulk of December with one new writeup a day from a different r/indieheads user. Up today, u/mikdaviswr07 kicks the series off with their write-up on one of the most acclaimed albums of the year, Geese's Getting Killed.
Partisan/Play It Again Sam - September 26, 2025
Listen:
Write-Up by u/mikdaviswr07
We live in the days of torrential information. We have so much to process on a daily basis that most of our communication efforts are spent sorting and unloading what we must just get out. If the year of our Lord 2025 had any signifier, it was being hit with a firehose of the most random yet seemingly important information.
And in this daze of information, enter the masterful jubilant mess that is Geese. After a debut that witnessed the fledgling Brooklyn band try with all their might to fit in (2021's Projector), they shook the post-punk labelling for the spiked-punch art rock of 2023's 3D Country. In hindsight, 3D Country looked to divide their listenership by walking the plank with no earthly idea of what a single should be. By creating these small factions of rally-round-the-flag believers with diverse cuts like the blistering apocalyptic opener "2122" (served with even more Carolina Reaper-style heat on the stopgap Alive & In Person EP), the inner wail pouring out of you on "I See Myself" or the psychedelic centerpiece "Cowboy Nudes," their audience practically tripled as the only way you could make sense of it all was to listen to the album front to back. And before you could scream "Sweet Nicaea, open your doors, 3D Country grew legs and walked all on its own.
However, the triptych of 3D Country posed a great mystery for the follow-up: how does one capture their live fury and frontman Cameron Winter’s lyricism that violates time and space, and then make the songs they deem to be worthy presented as cohesive? The answer was producer Kenneth Blume (fka Kenny Beats), the Nigel Godrich to the band's Radiohead. Like all good albums in development, Getting Killed is all about the process of catch and release. So for ten days while the Los Angeles wildfires raged around them, they recorded everything.
"There's a bomb in my car!"
Getting Killed is an album designed to set off all the alarms, yet isn’t as hair-raising or completely overwhelming as that sounds. Unlike that aforementioned firehose of information, Geese successfully arrange the most disparate pieces of their "information" to the point that one must get lost (the still brilliant "Taxes" wanders through the wilderness before discovering its blinding luminescence from within) to be found ("Trinidad" or "Long Island City Here I Come" speak in such terms of chaos that messages within the tracks act like signposts to telegraph one's feelings on that pass).
From the gambit that was Cameron Winter's amazing solo album Heavy Metal, Winter led Geese into a sort of slipstream where all the pieces are moving at varying speeds that somehow sync up. Witness the slow burn of "Husbands," an already underrated track where drummer Max Bassin (the MVP of the record) keeps the main beat driving uphill but accented with all manner of subtle polyrhythms. Winter and Emily Green chug away on their guitars and favor us with the occasional bent note in contrast to the song's muscularity (helped by the consistent bass of Dominic DiGesu). However, the heart of the journey is Winter’s Gospel-infused vocals, creating a full, harmonious chorus all by his lonesome.
Weirdly, singing about the joys of "falling apart," is not quite the storm Geese is looking to summon from the rarified air around them. That honor is bestowed upon the Talking Heads-influenced title track that, on the surface, sounds like listening to The Strokes while an ancient hippie percussion record plays quietly in the background. Winter finds the most happiness (and release) in yowling with pure satisfaction the assonance of "sadder bastard's eyes." And when the track peaks, the band slips in a Can-like jump edit to cool things down a bit only to open the room up for the life-altering proclamation "I'm getting killed by a pretty good life."
That’s not to say there aren’t incongruent moments here too. Geese like to flaunt their imperfections a little more than most (After all, their next album could be more Pavement-esque), like on the majestic Beefheart-ian wobble of "100 Horses" that contains some of the album's best lyrics as Winter winds out Van Morrison-esque warblings of war and its aftermath. For all of its repetition, after he hangs “Allllllllllllllllllllllllllllll people/All people must go dancing" out as dancefloor call-to-arms - we lurch from the alliterative hiccup of "hundred horses dancing" to the awkward, drawn-out "a hundred twenty-four."
"You can be free and still come home"
That being said, Getting Killed is not all moments that will rattle your chains and make your synapses sizzle from their newly carved-out connections. Take "Au Pays du Cocaine", a quiet, Velvet Underground-style (specifically their third, self-titled album) lullaby. Even with the drums and tambourine taking up plenty room in the mix, this is Geese at their most gentle. The spontaneity of Blume’s' production here makes the payoff rich, letting the song stay in its moment. Like those early The Band ballads or the mixed-up confusion of The White Album, Winter intones "you can change," letting Green's high single notes serve as the response - resonant comfort for all to hear, feel and absorb.
It may seem like it on the surface, but the closer "Long Island City Here I Come" is also quite soothing. Like "Husbands" and even "Taxes," the percussion is busy and bustling. However, the effect creates a wash that makes the song conjure those feelings of being just a few miles out of town (or out of port, since it truly feels "nautical"). As Winter rolls through Joan, Joshua, Charles, and Charlemagne, this is history playing itself out of your system as you make your grand arrival (hence the mantra citation of "Here I come") "Until I come home, I am not anyone," Winter triumphantly bellows, and you knowingly take your first steps on familiar ground toward greater opportunity.
"Baby, let me dance away forever and ever, yeah"
For all the beatnik chatter and homegrown outsider folk underpinnings, Geese prove they still have more room for evolution here. While Getting Killed isn’t quite as wild of a journey as 3D Country, the album still takes us to some pretty crazy places within its runtime. While the band’s druggy revision of true Americana is not what we once thought it was, it still amazes me that an album can exist on so many different levels, be so thoroughly intoxicating, and yet in the end, always wash you clean.
Favorite Lyrics
"You can either leave or stop playing that cowbell with your gun"
- “Long Island City Here I Come”
"And if my loneliness should stay
Well, some are holiest that way"
- “Husbands”
"I've got half a mind
To pay for the lobotomy"
- “Half Real”
Talking Points
- Getting Killed is an album that goes full throttle in most places, but never makes you feel overcome by its frenetic mix of hooks, terse rhythms, and winding guitar lines. Are there any other records like it to you?
- Like so many albums of this day and age, it almost eradicates their debut. Geese does not "redefine" itself per se, instead they redefine the boundaries that any of us place on new music. Are there any other bands who have had similar stories of follow-ups that wipe out the discography beforehand?
- With a rabid fan base, "Getting Killed" could have been made to their expectations and sound. Instead, they made an album for themselves that becomes an album for any audience. What do you think about the band’s sudden rise in popularity?
- And finally, where does Getting Killed rank on your AOTY list?
Thank you again to u/mikdaviswr07 for kicking the series off this year! Tomorrow, we'll have series veteran u/rccrisp coming back to talk the legendary Deftones and their new album, private music. In the meantime, discuss today's album and write-up in the comments below, and take a look at the schedule to familiarize yourself with the rest of the lineup.
Schedule:
| Date | Artist | Album | Writer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12/7 | Deftones | private music | u/rccrisp |
| 12/8 | Wet Leg | moisturizer | u/Frajer |
| 12/9 | YHWH Nailgun | 45 Pounds | u/ReconEG |
| 12/10 | Hayden Pedigo | I'll Be Waving As You Drive Away | u/syntheticgloom |
| 12/11 | No Joy | Bugland | u/Awardenaar |
| 12/12 | Brian Dunne | Clams Casino | u/bta47 |
| 12/13 | Sword II | Electric Hour | u/VindictiveGato |
| 12/14 | Gelli Haha | Switcheroo | u/rough___prophet_3 |
| 12/15 | Tullycraft | Shoot the Point | u/traceitalian |
| 12/16 | caroline | caroline 2 | u/SenatorBC |
| 12/17 | Samia | Bloodless | u/clawsinurback |
| 12/18 | Bambara | Birthmarks | u/mko0987 |
| 12/19 | The Swell Season | Forward | u/of_mice_and_meh |
| 12/20 | Hayley Williams | Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party | u/ImComingBack4YouBaby |
| 12/21 | YEONSOO | This is How I Disappear | u/zahneyvhoi |
| 12/22 | Paper Jam | This and That | u/p-u-n-k_girl |
| 12/23 | Ninajirachi | I Love My Computer | u/Special_Air8092 |
| 12/24 | Anouar Brahem | After the Last Sky | u/WaneLietoc |
| 12/25 | clipping. | Dead Channel Sky | u/danitykane |
| 12/26 | claire rousay | a little death | u/Agitated-Dish-4225 |
| 12/27 | jasmine.4.t | You Are the Morning | u/afieldoftulips |
| 12/28 | King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard | Phantom Island | u/DjangoVanTango |
| 12/29 | Turnstile | NEVER ENOUGH | u/Giantpanda602 |
| 12/30 | Car Seat Headrest | The Scholars | u/modulum83 |
| 12/31 | Viagra Boys | viagr aboys | u/_its_october_third_ |
Complete:
| Date | Artist | Album | Writer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12/6 | Geese | Getting Killed | u/mikdaviswr07 |
Posted Dec 6, 2025, 5:01 PM UTC