Album of the Week | Geese: 3D Country

Sitting down and listening to Geese’s sophomore album 3D Country, you are first welcomed by a relevant image on its cover: An anonymous figure, done up in jorts and a ten-gallon hat, is all twisted up as an atom bomb erupts in the far distance. Two years ago, the Brooklyn quintet—vocalist Cameron Winter, guitarists Gus Green and Foster Hudson, bassist Dom DiGesu and drummer Max Bassin—exploded onto the scene with Projector, a daring, awing debut that everyone in music circles became (rightfully) obsessed with—to some degree or another. With an artillery of post-punk, stadium anthems and energetic, Y2K garage rock, Geese perfected a sound that is as meticulous as krautrock and as titanic as cowboy chords set ablaze by 10-foot-tall amplifiers. Fast-forward to 2023, and the band’s second offering—3D Country—obliterates any notion of a “sophomore slump,” as the Brooklynites have crafted an ambitious, intricate and far-ranging LP of seismic proportions.

Rock ‘n’ roll has always been alive—but, perhaps, not always well—within the zeitgeist of modern music, across all eras. From the tween bops of Buddy Holly to the blood and guts of someone like Alice Cooper, there is a niche in the heart of every corner of this plentiful genre—and it seems like Geese have, unabashedly, opted to explore every inch of it. Instead of honing in on one specific thing and milking it dry, they’ve presented us with 3D Country—a project that dares to remain unconfined to any specific notion or intuition. Just when you think Geese have made their bed in an outlaw parade of glamorous guitars or a dialed back, pseudo-ballad, they flip the script just as quickly as they write it—and they do so in a blazingly effortless manner.

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After the buzz around Projector spurred into success, Geese had a lot of expectations thrust onto them for their eventual next release. Thankfully, 3D Country defies all of those expectations. From the jump, album opener “2122” is a cosmic rendering of what it might look like if the Red Hot Chili Peppers tried to map out a sonic landscape akin to Let There Be Rock-era AC/DC. “God of the sun, I’m taking you down on the inside,” Winter declares before a single note drops, only to shapeshift around the crooning guitars like Iggy Pop doing a trapeze stunt. What you’ll come to learn with 3D Country is that Geese know how to sequence a record ever so perfectly. The way “2122” avalanches into the country rock glitz of the album’s title track is one such perfect transition. Written about a cowboy who takes LSD in an outlaw world, “3D Country” is an ode to a head maxed out on brain mush with the backdrop of a beautiful Western prairie. There’s freedom in a fried mind, especially when Winter sings: “And I saw the dead come alive / ‘Allulah no anna see ray ah’ / What I saw could make a dead man cry / I’m goin’ home.”

One of the best parts of 3D Country is a subtle footnote that might get overlooked: The background vocals of Audrey Martells and LaJuan Carter, who leave their marks all across this album—displaying an incredible finesse within their perfect, soulful, “Gimme Shelter”-era, Merry Clayton-evoking harmonies. One such instance occurs on the first song that materialized during the 3D Country sessions: “Gravity Blues,” a piano-centric rock ballad with guitar riffs fit for the palace of an arena encore. Martells and Carter wrap their vocals around Winter’s like a warm, theatrical choir—and their voices lend an angelic cord to the ballast of Winter’s deep, plunging frontman bravado.

Standout tracks like “Cowboy Nudes,” “Crusades” and “Mysterious Love” dazzle in how unbound to each other they are. Surfing between remnants of Squid and the Rolling Stones, Geese never linger too long in any artifact they may decide to hold up to the light. It’s all vignettes of brief experimentation that coalesce into a greater vision: No influence is off-limits, nor is what Geese may begin to transform their palette into. Breezy, ice-slick guitars, DiGesu’s throbbing, steering rhythm and Bassin’s air-tight percussion define a record that’s greatest achievement is its inescapable, catchy hooks that are relentlessly deep-pocketed and dynamic. For some, it might be frustrating to spend 45 minutes with a band that has become so steadfast in their pursuit towards becoming indescribable. But 2023 has seen a lot of bands release records that merely retread the same frontier over and over again. 3D Country keeps you on your toes, and that is a gift that must not be taken for granted.

The centerpiece of the album is the seven-minute concerto “Undoer,” which combs through trash-rock textures, abrasive drums and soloing axes while Winter cuts glass with a piercing octave that is as noble as it is spell-binding to witness unfold in real time. “Ending the war / Healing my scars / Feeding the poor / Burning ‘em all / Love, it was all you,” he sings. There are riffs reminiscent of the avant-garde work that black midi is doing across the pond, but Geese are thoroughly cooking here. The track is emblematic of the album as a whole; jaggedly ditching every proclamation for the next brightest tone—especially when it codas into a guttural orchestra of digital, choppy, grunting arpeggios. Front beginning to end, it dazzles, straightens your back and edges every waking atom within you.

It cannot be understated, though, that Geese do know how to soften up. “I See Myself” is an excellent example of how reveling in a peeled-back arrangement is often harder to pull off than the brash, in-your-face discharge of rock ‘n’ roll firepower that cuts all the way down to the bone. “We could live in the sea / Just you and me / And that fish in between / I see myself in you / In my mind,” Winter sings, with Martells and Carter joining in on the melody behind him. Likewise, “Tomorrow’s Crusades” is destined to fly under the radar upon this album’s release. It might just be the best song on this whole project, and it arrives as a melodic, catchy, streamlined doozy with a trio of a viola, violin and cello in tow. Winter’s vocals are unchained to any specific scale here, transitioning from delicate harmonizing to a gruff, grating scream and, eventually, a Nick Cave-like spoken word. “Well I have lived in furious ages, I’ve seen it all / 10-headed dog ate up the people, swallowed ‘em whole / And never in my life will I forget her, putting the world in her open jaws,” he sings.

3D Country finds influence in imagery from Cormac McCarthy novels and gonzo, trippy, mid-century psych-rock. There’s romance and mortality within these stories; seeds of poetry delicately gospelized by Geese. “In the fire, we’ll get together,” Winter sings during closer “St. Elmo,” “locking eyes like lonely dancers.” The band’s sophomore outing is not the cowboy dreamscape that numerous artists have been attempting to pastoralize in the last five years. The honky tonk flourishings and Western textures Geese employ here are simply vessels needed in order to unveil the juxtapositions of brutality and daintiness that plague their interests.

“I’ve been old since my eyes opened / Teach me kindness, show me cold / I’ve been awake too long, too long,” Winter croons on the falsetto-glazed “Domoto.” This quintet, who were very much flirting with the rock ‘n’ roll rendition of teen idols on Projector, are documenting their own slow descent into the harsh realities of growing older. But 3D Country is not a coming-of-age document so much as it is a glaring, picturesque reading of the opaque depravities of young adulthood and the fleeting beauty that, briefly, intersects with it. Geese are on an expedited journey towards a rockstar Mount Rushmore. With Exile on Main St. chords from Green and Hudson and a Biblical amount of reference points thrust into a machine of heat-seeking, pulverizing rug-cutting, the band continues to prove just how iced-out in the most-decadent, glittering gems that 60 years of soloing guitars have ever had to offer they are. Across 11 tracks, 3D Country is gnarled, chaotic and vibrant. But, what’s potentially the most-shattering truth of all is that, amid all of this charismatic, wholehearted sonic anarchy, Geese have only just begun.

Matt Mitchell is Paste‘s assistant music editor. He lives in Columbus, Ohio, but you can find him online @yogurttowne. Watch Geese’s Paste Studio on the Road performance from 2022 below.

Album of the Week | Geese: 3D Country

All at once theatrical, vicious, heartfelt and daring, Geese’s sophomore album is a brilliant, miraculous assemblage of stone cold rock ‘n’ roll