When Geese dropped ‘Taxes’ in July because the lead single from Getting Killed, the Brooklyn band supplied a promise: this might be totally different.
With the album now sitting on year-end best-of lists and the band wrapping triumphant hometown reveals on the Paramount, that promise feels remarkably fulfilled. Paste Journal calls it doubtlessly ‘one of the artistic indie rock data of the 2020s.’
‘Taxes’ capabilities because the penultimate monitor on an album Uproxx calls ‘probably the most 2025 album of 2025, the file that, by far, finest captures how scary and chaotic issues appear proper now.’
The monitor broadcasts itself with earthy hand percussion, a rhythmic basis that feels virtually ritualistic. Max Bassin’s drumming builds with affected person confidence, refusing to settle into predictable constructions.
The Lyrical Structure
Cameron Winter’s opening admission strikes instantly: ‘I ought to burn in hell / I ought to burn in hell / However I don’t deserve this / No person deserves this.’
It’s a exceptional start line, acknowledging guilt while concurrently rejecting punishment. (Learn the full lyrics on Genius)
The biblical imagery isn’t ornament. When Winter sings, ‘If you would like me to pay my taxes / You’d higher come over with a crucifix / You’re gonna must nail me down,’ he’s invoking Christ’s crucifixion, positioning himself as somebody who’d quite face martyrdom than adjust to damaged programs.
The tax collector turns into any entity demanding sacrifice with out consent, literal financial taxes or the broader emotional levies trendy existence extracts.
‘Physician, physician, heal your self’ precedes Winter’s most devastating promise: ‘I’ll break my very own coronary heart any more.’
It’s a declaration of independence from exterior validation, a dedication to self-destruction on one’s personal phrases.
Sonic Evolution
The manufacturing, dealt with by Geese alongside Kenny Beats, begins in near-minimalism earlier than the inevitable eruption.
Emily Inexperienced’s guitar work demonstrates admirable persistence, offering delicate color till the midpoint transformation.
The shift feels seismic: the combo opens from near-mono into full stereo width, guitars cascading while the rhythm part locks right into a groove that feels each celebratory and apocalyptic.
Winter’s voice has all the time divided listeners, however right here it feels grounded in new methods. The affect of his 2024 solo album Heavy Steel is clear in his restraint. The distinctive warble stays, but it surely’s deployed with goal quite than extra.
The Divisive Factor
Honesty requires acknowledging what received’t land for each listener. Winter’s vocal supply operates as Geese’s most polarising aspect, both the exact software the songs require or an impediment to having fun with genuinely compelling instrumental work.
The timbre itself divides opinion, however the true friction emerges from how prominently the vocals sit within the combine.
Geese constructs remarkably layered preparations, hearken to how Inexperienced’s guitar interacts with Bassin’s drums all through ‘Taxes,’ the delicate harmonic shifts beneath the floor.
But Winter’s voice dominates the stereo subject in methods that may obscure these particulars.
For listeners who prioritise instrumental dynamics and prolonged passages the place musicians can breathe with out vocal presence, this presents a real barrier.
The monitor’s climactic second-half transformation proves notably contentious. The shift from restrained stress to full-band eruption represents precisely what Geese do finest: managed chaos that feels earned quite than imposed.
But when Winter’s vocal strategy doesn’t join with you, that total payoff loses affect. The explosion turns into noise quite than catharsis.
The songs keep vocal presence all through, denying listeners the prospect to focus purely on what the rhythm part and guitars accomplish.
For individuals who view lyrics as complementary quite than central, who consider nice instrumentation ought to carry a monitor no matter what’s being sung, this fixed vocal foregrounding can really feel suffocating.
It’s not a flaw in Geese’s strategy. It’s merely music designed for listeners who join with Winter’s supply, which suggests it inherently excludes those that don’t.
The Visible Descent
Director Noel Paul’s music video operates as a visible thesis on viewers, efficiency, and the violence beneath collective euphoria. It opens with a handheld digicam pushing by means of a packed venue, capturing Geese performing with near-dispassionate precision.
Then the transformation. The digicam switches to undercranked movie, creating footage that strikes with unnatural pace.
As Paul defined in an interview, the inspiration got here from medieval work of damned souls and Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro torture depictions.
The undercranking emphasises vibe over reference, letting imagery register emotionally quite than intellectually.
The gang begins to convulse. Live performance euphoria curdles into one thing darker. Viewers members assault one another, the violence escalating till they’re actually consuming each other.
The visible reference to Goya’s ‘Saturn Devouring His Son’ interprets the portray’s uncooked horror right into a thesis about crowds, consumption, and the skinny line between celebration and carnage.
Inside Getting Killed
Launched 26 September by way of Partisan Information, Getting Killed represents precisely what ‘Taxes’ promised: Geese discovering confidence of their idiosyncrasies while tightening compositional focus.
Crucial reception has been overwhelming. NME proclaimed the band ‘on the verge of correct cult superstardom,’ while The Line of Greatest Match known as it ‘the kind of album that makes you rethink the final album you thought of nice.’
Offended Steel Man famous how ‘noisier tracks transfer seamlessly into the extra melodic,’ pointing to the transition from ‘Bow Down’ to the ‘explosive Taxes’ as proof of intentionality behind the album’s managed chaos.
Yr-Finish Recognition
Pitchfork ranked ‘Taxes’ the tenth finest tune of 2025, noting the way it ‘stalks and sways on hole, death-rattling drums and is reborn at its coda, exploding right into a raucous pop melody.’
The band’s latest Brooklyn Paramount reveals showcased how the monitor has developed stay. What works on file as a rigorously constructed three-minute assertion turns into one thing looser, extra harmful in efficiency.
Launched in July throughout escalating debates over authorities spending, ‘Taxes’ gained further weight as autumn introduced extra battle over the place collective assets really go.
Why It Endures
Yr-end retrospectives place Getting Killed amongst 2025’s important releases. ‘Taxes’ stands because the monitor that finest captures what critics determine because the album’s central achievement: modern chaos with out being consumed by it.
Songs like this give voice to systemic frustration with out providing false options.
The metaphor proves remarkably elastic. ‘Taxes’ can imply financial obligation, emotional labour, surrendered dignity, or the numerous methods trendy existence extracts cost.
This universality explains why listeners hold connecting with a tune that shouldn’t work: a monitor about resistance invoking crucifixion imagery and climaxing with a promise of deliberate heartbreak.
The Verdict
‘Taxes’ succeeds as a thesis assertion that proved correct. The monitor promised an album that may belief its viewers with out pandering. Getting Killed delivered, incomes year-end checklist placements and demanding declarations that Geese have grow to be one in every of modern rock’s very important acts.
The monitor stands as one in every of 2025’s most compelling rock releases exactly as a result of it refuses consolation. It acknowledges hell, questions whether or not we deserve it, then chooses defiance over acceptance.
Winter’s promise to interrupt his personal coronary heart resonates as a result of it’s each deeply private and universally relatable.
Self-inflicted ache generally feels preferable to ready for the inevitable exterior blow. ‘Taxes’ voices that impulse with out romanticising it.
The tune marks a turning level in Geese’s evolution from promising post-punk upstarts to one in every of modern rock’s most vital voices.
That is the sound of a band that discovered its voice by means of confidence, not compromise, by means of understanding which issues matter.
Geese delivered one thing uncommon: a tune that met 2025’s second with out being consumed by it.
As retrospectives solidify Getting Killed amongst the yr’s important releases, ‘Taxes’ stands because the defiant requiem that introduced Geese had totally realised their promise.
The monitor stays a three-minute burst of managed chaos, proof that rock music doesn’t want saving, simply bands keen to play it with this a lot conviction.
