Geese review – all hail the new saviours of rock’n’roll

Switching from convulsive rhythmic thrills to shimmering introspection, the Brooklyn indie-rockers’ music defies expectations and is viscerally of the moment

‘The last time we played here, we played on a boat,” Cameron Winter murmurs in a rare moment of between-song chat. There are also quite a few boats bobbing around in the Geese singer’s lyrics, seemingly symbolising both freedom and confinement, but right now he is being perfectly literal. The vessel in question was Thekla, a cargo ship turned venue moored in Bristol harbour that is roughly an eighth of the size of the room that greets the Brooklyn indie-rock band tonight.

Geese’s rise since that 2023 show has been precipitous. Thanks to the acclaim that met their fourth LP, Getting Killed, last autumn, less than a year after Winter’s solo bow Heavy Metal earned similar plaudits, theirs is now the name on the lips of anyone left with a desire to anoint new saviours of rock’n’roll. Spend 90 minutes watching them perform, though, and you too may come around to that way of thinking.

Stalking on stage as the crowd belt out their name in a football chant, Geese swerve any expectations of a fast start by teasing out the intro to Husbands, its low rumble gradually taking hold. Winter, his face hidden beneath the hood of his sweatshirt, allows a couple of lines to fall from his mouth before cutting loose in the chorus, teeing up a surge into Getting Killed’s riffy title track.

They delight in this sort of switcheroo, pivoting from the shimmering introspection of Cobra into Bow Down, where bassist Dominic DiGesu and drummer Max Bassin conjure convulsive rhythmic thrills. Playing off Winter’s malleable voice – a bruised baritone one minute, half-garbled fire and brimstone the next – guitarist Emily Green covers a remarkable amount of ground, delivering dextrous blues, squalling feedback and, during Islands of Men, sinewy leads that recall late-period Fugazi.

After Winter sings, “There is only dance music in times of war,” during 100 Horses, Green and pianist Sam Revaz flood in, splitting the difference between Happy Mondays’ Step On and Benmont Tench sparring with Tom Petty. In moments such as this, Geese’s music feels both historically literate and viscerally of the moment. Sometimes, just sometimes, the hype is justified.

• At 02 Academy Leeds, 22 March, then touring UK, Europe and the US until 18 September