Geese are the hottest band in the world

It feels like a very long time since a white-hot new guitar band appeared that appeals to a broad swathe of listeners – the young and old; those with rarefied tastes, and those just after a good time. But Geese – four Brooklyn musicians in their early 20s, plus their touring keyboard player Sam Revaz – have gone from cult concern to feted rock darlings in the space of less than a year. Adulation arrived with their fourth album Getting Killed, released last September, some six or so months after frontman Cameron Winter’s excellent solo outing, Heavy Metal, started sparking hype.

While some bands can appear coltish or over-compensatory when thrust suddenly into the spotlight, Geese have vast reserves of technical skill and swagger to draw upon as the venues get bigger. Bassist Dominic DiGesu provides extra percussion; Revaz unexpectedly whips out a keytar. Geese recently won a Brit award for international group of the year, sending their drummer Max Bassin to collect the award. His censored speech in full: “Free Palestine, fuck ICE, and go Geese.”

Then as now, Geese live up to the superlatives flying around them. At the O2 Academy in Leeds, they sound like the hottest thing in the present moment, and like half a dozen great bands from the past, all in the space of one incandescent live set. You can hear the Strokes, Led Zeppelin and Captain Beefheart, all filtered through a 21st-century sound. This diffident band are backlit throughout most of the gig, saying little. The focus is on the songs, which flow as readily as mercury over an ecstatic crowd.

Getting Killed is well represented in the setlist. The band alternate between close reproductions of many of its finest tracks, and fabulous, dilatory reworkings. Their most abject love songs, Cobra and Au Pays du Cocaine, feel familiar enough, the audience singing along while Winter and the guitarist Emily Green emphasise the tenderness of their guitar parts. But a rousing, looser and funkier take on 100 Horses finds Winter changing the word “all” to fulsome “alalalalalalas” that are half gargle, half war cry. “There is only dance music in times of war!” he drawls. It’s sublime. The mid-song workout on Bow Down is the kind you can get lost in; it could have gone on far longer.

As befits an overnight sensation a few years in the making, Geese dip into their back catalogue, and then drop a breadcrumb trail leading to the future. At the end of the set, a new song called Apollo pairs a motoric pulse with words about space flight. The band loop a line – “I’m going to the moon!” – insistently. The track ends in a crumpled heap of metallic noise and strobing lights.

The band’s restless musicality is key to their appeal. They are an indie rock outfit well versed in the US jam-band tradition, in which improvisation and cross-genre exploration are prized. Geese could sprawl aimlessly, but wisely they don’t.

On this European tour, the band have often interpolated songs by local heroes into 2122, a track from their 2023 album 3D Country. In Germany, Geese played Can; in Glasgow, they quoted Primal Scream. Tonight’s choice is a snippet of Tubthumping by Leeds’ anarcho-punks Chumbawamba. This time Winter only summons the track on this phone, playing it out loud through the microphone – to a mixture of bemusement and enthusiasm. They already had local colour, though. Leeds United’s simple but effective terrace chant – Leeds, Leeds, Leeds – transfers very well into guttural shouts of Geese, Geese, Geese.

Seemingly all too soon, the night climaxes with the encore with Trinidad, the atmospheric opening track on Getting Killed, and a calling card for Geese’s gnarly charms. The band lead in teasingly, building tension. Winter sings the anguished opening lines almost sotto voce, before the band build to a series of combustible crescendos. “There’s a bomb in my car!” everyone yells. Winter’s lyrics often tend towards inscrutability: Getting Killed is, after a fashion, a heartbreak album about horses and husbands, death and taxes. But despite a surfeit of quotable lines and nagging choruses, much of the band’s appeal lies in their poetic refusal to be pinned down. They exit, mystique intact.

Photographs by Lewis Evans