There’s something that feels very familiar about the music of Geese – in a sense that it feels recent, but still retro at the same time. I suppose that looking back at the latest New York rock revolution of the early 00’s, now twenty years old, it’s normal to think that some bands may be influenced by what they have heard from the era, those bands themselves looking twenty or so years back. Time flies.
Projector sounds like you’re joining it in progress. The rumble of “Rain Dance” is propulsive, with glassy guitar textures refracting over Cameron Winter’s vocals. You’re immediately drawn into the intrigue of the Brooklyn-based group which sound remarkably assured on their debut record.
“Low Era” begins with intertwining guitars raining down not dissimilar to their New York forefathers, Television. Here, Winter’s vocal glides into a falsetto before bursting into a chorus straight out of Franz Ferdinand. It’s sticky, sly, and effortlessly catchy – great for playlists in this endless summer.
There’s plenty to like here, the angular stabs of “Disco” that dissolve into expertly crafted skronk, or the mountains of guitars on the album’s title track. Ultimately, what you’re learn about Projector is that it’s simply very good. This is the sound of Geese - who have been playing together since they were freshmen in high school and didn’t anticipate playing much longer after graduation until they ended up signing a record deal. To think about how young they are, and how effortlessly they have put together this record is a harbinger of what’s to come.
There’s precedent for this. Earlier this year, Geese performed a cover of “This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody)” by Talking Heads for a SiriusXM session – a perfect song by any stretch and interpreted by any number of covers ranging from truly excellent to perfectly fine. But something about Geese’s version sounded different. Here, Winter was bending the verses to his vocal instead of trying to replicate that to David Byrne. Imagine trying on that big suit from Stop Making Sense and deciding to tailor it. There’s something purely intense instead of fragile from the original version.
What can you say about a band that operates with that level of fearlessness? You can only wonder what’s to come. Geese’s Projector is exceptional out of the gate, but it’s tantalizingly just the tip of the iceberg. We can only hope to see more of it surface from the depths.
- Brendan Hilliard, Obviate Media
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