Getting Killed is the fourth[a] studio album by American rock band Geese, released on September 26, 2025 on Partisan Records and Play It Again Sam. Produced by the band itself and Kenny Beats, the album was preceded by the singles, "Taxes", "Trinidad" and "100 Horses". It is the band's first studio album without founding guitarist Foster Hudson, who departed from the band in 2023 to pursue academia.
Recorded in January 2025, one month after the release of frontman Cameron Winter's debut solo album, Heavy Metal (2024), the album was released to widespread critical acclaim.
Background
Following the release of their third album 3D Country (2023), Geese transitioned from a quintet to a quartet.[2] The departure of guitarist Foster Hudson on 22 December 2023, attributed to his decision to pursue academic work,[3] left frontman Cameron Winter, guitarist Emily Green, bassist Dominic DiGesu, and drummer Max Bassin as the band's core members.[4] With Hudson gone, Winter assumed a larger share of the guitar arrangements on the new material.[5] DiGesu and Green later described the lineup change as a motivating factor that compelled them to refine their collaborative approach.[6]
Geese's collaboration with producer Kenny Beats, a.k.a. Kenneth Blume, began informally in mid-2024, when Blume encountered the band's merchandise and became curious about their work. The two met at Austin City Limits in October 2024, where Blume expressed an enthusiasm for leaving imperfections intact—an attitude Winter regarded as a rare and liberating approach for a rock-adjacent producer.[6] Geese spent several days that November at Putnam Hill, Blume's newly built studio in Los Angeles, to develop preliminary demos. Blume initially found the material structurally chaotic, though his view shifted after hearing a solo project Winter released later that year, which clarified the songs' internal logic and convinced him of the project's potential.[6]
The release of Winter's solo album Heavy Metal on December 6, 2024[7] generated an unexpected impact of critical attention. Despite modest expectations from the label,[6] the album became a cult success[8][9] and was acclaimed for its songwriting and vocal experimentation.[10] Its reception drew new attention to Geese's work and heightened anticipation for their next release. He later stated that the success of the solo album increased his confidence and informed his intention to make Getting Killed a louder and more forceful record than its predecessor.[11]
Recording and production
Getting Killed was recorded and produced at Kenny Beats' studio (pictured)
Recording took place in January 2025 at the Putnam Hill studio,[5] and Getting Killed was produced by the band itself alongside Kenny Beats.[12] The overall process was recorded over a ten-day period, with the band working fourteen-hour days while the Southern California wildfires filled the Los Angeles air with smoke and ash.[6] Winter described the process as a "waking nightmare until it's mastered", and the band arrived with around twenty demos that were often incomplete, forcing them to write, restructure, and refine material in real time.[5] Much of the album emerged from extended thirty-minute jam sessions centered on repetitive grooves,[5][13] which Bassin characterized as explorations of patterns that "feel almost like they don't end".[11]
Blume, who is known for his work in hip-hop,[14] informed an emphasis on the rhythm section,[15] resulting in Bassin's drumming operating in what Under the Radar writer Mark Moody called "maximum overdrive"[16] and in bass and drum performances being tracked repeatedly until they could support the album's more experimental textures.[6] The production also incorporated deliberately abrasive or unconventional elements across the album. The group spent one session selecting a single handclap sample from a folder of roughly 7,000 options, an example they later noted had briefly delayed completion of the associated song. Winter's vocal recording process swung between extremes, with some takes captured immediately and others requiring more than forty attempts in order to push his voice into the desired emotionally frayed state.[5]
The opening track "Trinidad" establishes the album's volatile and chaotic tone.[13][27] It features jagged guitars,[27] explosive percussion,[20] erratic bursts of brass,[9] and layers of discordant noise.[25] Critics compared the sound to "Radiohead on PCP"[28] or a funk ensemble pushed into noise-rock extremes.[13] Winter's vocals alternate between languid phrasing and sharp, shrieking outbursts.[23] The refrain, "There's a bomb in my car!", forms one of the album's most memorable lines,[9][14] and the Australian musician Nick Cave remarked that the shift into the chorus creates a moment in which "all worry is laid to waste".[29][30] "Cobra" introduces a more melodic and relaxed atmosphere.[25][27] Its breezy textures recall a Beach Boys-adjacent palette,[20] while Winter's vocals adopt a crooning tone that Holly Hazelwood of Spectrum Culture interpreted as evidence of his potential as a "neo-crooner".[25] The song blends interlocking guitar melodies and nostalgia[31] with an attempt to subvert pop conventions.[23] "Husbands" is built on a steady, metronomic drum pattern and supple guitar lines reminiscent of the John Frusciante period of Red Hot Chili Peppers. It incorporates elements of gospel-inflected harmony, extended groove-based structure, and R&B-tinged lo-fi production.[23] The track conveys a sense of being burdened by a city for which there remains affection,[31] as reflected in Winter's line "I'll repeat what I say, but I'll never explain".[32]
The title track "Getting Killed" begins with an upbeat, crunchy rhythm before resolving into a more settled groove.[23] It features a blues-derived guitar line and a sampled Ukrainian choral[21] passage described by Rachel Aroesti of The Guardian as a "frantic pile-up of voices and grooves".[9] Writing for Exclaim!, Eric Hill likened the song's character to a "Julian Casablancas-fronted Black Crowes".[22] "Islands of Men" opens with a steady bass figure[31] and gradually develops its warm atmosphere over six minutes.[20] The track has been described as swaying boogie rock that transitions into something more ethereal as it proceeds.[15] "100 Horses", a rapid, high-energy piece[8] built on repetitive, militant grooves,[27] leans heavily into funk-inflected rhythm and percussive force.[32] Bassin's drumming dominates the arrangement,[31] and Winter's lyrics engage in a "pantomime of American imperialism",[4] with lines such as "There is only dance music in times of war" and "All people must die scared or else die nervous" linking the track to the album's broader critique of violence and power.[8][14] "Half Real" evokes a Tom Waits-like preacherly tone[16] and draws on a bar-room atmosphere[26] marked by drones reminiscent of the Velvet Underground's "Venus in Furs".[20] Winter's vocal performance leans into a spoken-sung delivery as he contemplates extreme personal erasure: "I've got half a mind, to just pay for the lobotomy... I've got no more thinking to do".[33]
Described by MusicOMH's John Murphy as of the album's most subdued tracks,[32] "Au Pays du Cocaine" adopts a gentle, swaying mood and highlights Winter's baritone,[20] rendered in a manner akin to a post-punk crooner.[34] Its melodic structure recalls a folk lullaby.[33] The lyrics address a reluctant partner with lines such as "You can be free and still come home"[16] and "Baby you can change and still choose me".[32] "Bow Down" reintroduces a dense, energetic style, characterized by a sharp guitar-and-drum interlock[23] and a rhythmic language described by Murphy as "jerky math-rock".[32] The track reshapes a staccato riff into an off-kilter dance figure.[20] Winter addresses transformation and shifting identity through metaphors such as "I was a sailor, and now I'm a boat... I was a car, and now I'm the road",[13] giving the song a chant-like quality that reinterprets elements of the band's earlier post-punk style.[14] "Taxes" is constructed around a polyrhythmic introduction that abruptly opens into wide, chiming guitar arrangements.[26] The track has been described as a cathartic rock anthem,[31] with Winter's vocals combining desperation and melodic clarity.[35] The lyrics incorporate biblical references and bleak humor, exemplified by "If you want me to pay my taxes / You'd better come over with a crucifix / You're gonna have to nail me down".[4] "Long Island City Here I Come" builds in intensity and volume.[25][32] The final section features Winter's voice gradually receding[31] into a stream-of-consciousness monologue[32] involving images such as "Microphones hidden under your bed"[15] and apocalyptic anxieties.[33]
Release
On June 23, 2025, the band announced a North American headlining tour in support of the album. The tour began in South Burlington, Vermont on October 10, and concluded in Brooklyn, New York on November 21.[2]
The album was announced on July 8 alongside the release of its lead single, "Taxes". The song's music video has been described as containing "a hallucinatory rush of moshing, screaming, and violence that feels akin to an exorcism".[36] On July 24, Cameron Winter leaked the album's opening track, "Trinidad", via an Instagram live stream.[28] The song was officially released five days later, on July 29.[37]Getting Killed was released on September 26 through Partisan Records and Play It Again Sam.[36]
A day after the album's release, the band played a free show in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, outside the headquarters of The Lot Radio. It was attended by thousands of people.[38]
A music video for "Au Pays du Cocaine" was released on October 8. It depicts Winter caring for a baby, reinforcing the theme of uneasy tenderness.[39]
Getting Killed has received acclaim from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, Getting Killed received a rating of 89 out of 100 based on nineteen critic reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[41] Similarly, on AnyDecentMusic?, it received a rating of 8.7 out of 10, based on 22 reviews.[40]
↑While this album is advertised by Geese as their third, and is their third under a record label, it is technically their fourth studio album counting their since-removed 2018 debut album A Beautiful Memory.[1]
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