<\/p>\n
Who is Geese? To a certain type of music fan, that question would be absurd.<\/p>\n
The young, droll and precociously successful Brooklyn quartet has been perhaps the most exhaustively discussed and vehemently debated rock band of the 2020s so far. But any musical guests making their debut on \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d \u2014 as Geese did this weekend, on an episode hosted by the \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d actress Teyana Taylor<\/a> \u2014 knows a sizable portion of the audience will be coming to its performances puzzled and wondering, \u201cWho is<\/em> that?\u201d Under its brightest spotlight yet, Geese offered two completely different answers.<\/p>\n In a music industry increasingly oriented toward A-listers, streaming juggernauts and viral stars, opportunities for monocultural breakout moments outside of social media have all but gone extinct. The cancellation of \u201cThe Late Show With Stephen Colbert\u201d and the uncertain future of late-night shows means that up-and-coming bands will soon have few places to play for network television audiences.<\/p>\n Geese\u2019s appearance on \u201cS.N.L.\u201d was the culmination of a gradual climb that played out for much of last year. After releasing albums in 2021<\/a> and 2023, the band enjoyed an unexpected creative and commercial breakthrough \u2014 thanks to both the cult popularity of the frontman Cameron Winter<\/a>\u2019s oddball but stirringly poetic solo album \u201cHeavy Metal\u201d and Geese\u2019s ambitious third album, \u201cGetting Killed,\u201d a side-winding collection of songs that unfolds like a slow descent into an exalted state of madness. Depending on who you ask, Geese is either its generation\u2019s great saviors of rock \u2019n\u2019 roll, or its most derivative impostors. \u201cGetting Killed\u201d was by far my favorite album of last year, but even I compared<\/a> Winter\u2019s warble to cilantro (you either love it or you hate it<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Winter\u2019s unique vocal stylings took center stage on Geese\u2019s first song, the glacially paced ballad \u201cAu Pays du Cocaine.\u201d (The title is an esoteric pun on \u201cThe Land of Cockaigne,\u201d a medieval story and later a 16th-century Dutch painting depicting catatonic overindulgence.) On \u201cGetting Killed,\u201d this song provides a lovely respite from the album\u2019s higher-intensity chaos; amid the luminous twinkle of Emily Green\u2019s guitar, Winter croons lyrics that oscillate between willfully obtuse (\u201clike a sailor in a big green boat\u201d) and nakedly yearning (\u201cyou can be free, just come home, please\u201d).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n As an introduction to \u201cS.N.L.\u201d viewers unfamiliar with Geese, the song was an inauspicious choice. Onstage, Winter is known for enlivening songs with slight rhythmic and lyrical variations from the recorded versions, and he did this during \u201cCocaine,\u201d often pausing an extra beat or two before delivering his lines. Those small tweaks may have delighted fans, but the performance never quite found its footing rhythmically or melodically. Viewers more familiar with Geese\u2019s reputation than its music were likely to be left scratching their heads: These kids<\/em> are supposed to be the great Gen-Z hope for rock \u2019n\u2019 roll?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But the band\u2019s studio-shaking second performance provided a more impactful introduction. The song choice itself was audacious: Geese went with \u201cTrinidad,\u201d the eerie \u201cGetting Killed\u201d opener that careens between hushed, haunted verses and an explosive chorus on which the band summons its most cacophonous fury and Winter shouts, like a man possessed, \u201cThere\u2019s a bomb in my car!\u201d As Green\u2019s spiky guitar phrasings provided an off-kilter atmosphere and the drummer Max Bassin thrashed at his kit with energetic glee, the band sounded much more locked in. The energy was electric and contagious. In the middle of the first chorus, Winter\u2019s usually stoic face broke into a getting-away-with-it grin.<\/p>\n