‘Taxes’ by Geese: one of the most innovative songs of 2025
From the astonishing, long-awaited comebacks of Wolf Alice and Wet Leg, to the critically acclaimed releases from CMAT, Pulp, and Ethel Cain, 2025 has already been a big year for alternative music.
As such, it’s easy for even the most avid music fan to get lost among the sea of names climbing those ranks. But there is one innovative band we think should be on your radar.
Geese, the outfit behind singer-songwriter Cameron Winter, was first formed in 2016. Consisting of Winter, Emily Green, Dominic DiGesu and Max Bassin, the New York four-piece soon came to different labels’ attention after they released self-produced demos while studying at high school together. Eventually signing with Partisan Records, the band released its debut album, Projector, in 2021, which was recorded in Bassin’s basement from late 2019 to early 2020.
Despite Geese having received critical acclaim for their first record, which was listed in Far Out’s Top 50 albums of 2021, it wasn’t until 2023, with the release of their sophomore album, 3D Country, that the band began to truly take the industry by storm. Thanks to Winter’s unmistakable vocals, which sit somewhere between a falsetto and a nasal yelp, paired with the band’s experimental sound, Geese have since been likened to New York greats like The Strokes, as well as other contemporary British groups, such as Black Midi.
Now, following a two-year hiatus, during which Winter released his painstakingly beautiful solo album, Heavy Metal, the Brooklyn outfit have announced their third album, Getting Killed, alongside a 2026 UK and European tour. Writing on Winter’s solo work, Far Out said: “Grappling with so many emotions throughout its ten songs, the feelings of loneliness, existentialism and hopelessness all begin to entangle, creating a haziness that causes some of these classic reference points to become fantastical and clouded by unexpected diversions into the surreal.”
Produced by Kenny Beats in his LA studio, the band’s upcoming album, which Winter himself described as a “waking nightmare” to make, is set to be released on September 26. But for us impatient fans, the band have already offered us three singles ‘100 Horses’, ‘Trinidad’ and ‘Taxes’ – the latter being, arguably, one of the most innovative songs of 2025 thus far.
Why? Because ‘Taxes’ raises a middle finger to conventional music structures, offering in their place a cacophony of sound like no other. Opening with the earthy sound of tribal drums, the track segues into a spritely, Keane-esque piano refrain, before ending on a euphoric high. The resulting product is a track that feels like a three-in-one – not just because of Winter’s impressive vocal range. While many songs can be placed into neat categories, trying to describe the genre of ‘Taxes’ is a bit like trying to explain the construct of time. Seemingly impossible.
While the track isn’t lyrically groundbreaking or substantial, given that we are only offered an intro and two verses, each word carries weight, underlining and placing in bold the song’s message. Here, Geese have managed to transform a mundane, albeit frustrating, aspect of life, paying taxes, into something utterly tragic: a skill that derived from Winter’s experimentation with introspection on tracks like ‘Drinking Age’ from his solo LP.
That being said, the track’s most devastating line comes at its close, following Winter’s criticism of the American health system with his screams of “Doctor, doctor, heal yourself”. The vocalist ends by surrendering to all that has come before, promising: “And I will break my own heart/ I will break my own heart from now on.”
