When Geese dropped ‘Taxes’ in July as the lead single from Getting Killed, the Brooklyn band offered a promise: this would be different.
With the album now sitting on year-end best-of lists and the band wrapping triumphant hometown shows at the Paramount, that promise feels remarkably fulfilled. Paste Magazine calls it potentially ‘one of the most creative indie rock records of the 2020s.’
‘Taxes’ functions as the penultimate track on an album Uproxx calls ‘the most 2025 album of 2025, the record that, by far, best captures how scary and chaotic things seem right now.’
The track announces itself with earthy hand percussion, a rhythmic foundation that feels almost ritualistic. Max Bassin’s drumming builds with patient confidence, refusing to settle into predictable structures.
The Lyrical Architecture
Cameron Winter’s opening admission strikes immediately: ‘I should burn in hell / I should burn in hell / But I don’t deserve this / Nobody deserves this.’
It’s a remarkable starting point, acknowledging guilt whilst simultaneously rejecting punishment. (Read the full lyrics on Genius)
The biblical imagery isn’t decoration. When Winter sings, ‘If you want me to pay my taxes / You’d better come over with a crucifix / You’re gonna have to nail me down,’ he’s invoking Christ’s crucifixion, positioning himself as someone who’d rather face martyrdom than comply with broken systems.
The tax collector becomes any entity demanding sacrifice without consent, literal monetary taxes or the broader emotional levies modern existence extracts.
‘Doctor, doctor, heal yourself’ precedes Winter’s most devastating promise: ‘I will break my own heart from now on.’
It’s a declaration of independence from external validation, a commitment to self-destruction on one’s own terms.
Sonic Evolution
The production, handled by Geese alongside Kenny Beats, begins in near-minimalism before the inevitable eruption.
Emily Green’s guitar work demonstrates admirable patience, providing subtle colour until the midpoint transformation.
The shift feels seismic: the mix opens from near-mono into full stereo width, guitars cascading whilst the rhythm section locks into a groove that feels both celebratory and apocalyptic.
Winter’s voice has always divided listeners, but here it feels grounded in new ways. The influence of his 2024 solo album Heavy Metal is apparent in his restraint. The distinctive warble remains, but it’s deployed with purpose rather than excess.
The Divisive Element
Honesty requires acknowledging what won’t land for every listener. Winter’s vocal delivery operates as Geese’s most polarising element, either the precise tool the songs require or an obstacle to enjoying genuinely compelling instrumental work.
The timbre itself divides opinion, but the real friction emerges from how prominently the vocals sit in the mix.
Geese constructs remarkably layered arrangements, listen to how Green’s guitar interacts with Bassin’s drums throughout ‘Taxes,’ the subtle harmonic shifts beneath the surface.
Yet Winter’s voice dominates the stereo field in ways that can obscure these details.
For listeners who prioritise instrumental dynamics and extended passages where musicians can breathe without vocal presence, this presents a genuine barrier.
The track’s climactic second-half transformation proves particularly contentious. The shift from restrained tension to full-band eruption represents exactly what Geese do best: controlled chaos that feels earned rather than imposed.
But if Winter’s vocal approach doesn’t connect with you, that entire payoff loses impact. The explosion becomes noise rather than catharsis.
The songs maintain vocal presence throughout, denying listeners the chance to focus purely on what the rhythm section and guitars accomplish.
For those who view lyrics as complementary rather than central, who believe great instrumentation should carry a track regardless of what’s being sung, this constant vocal foregrounding can feel suffocating.
It’s not a flaw in Geese’s approach. It’s simply music designed for listeners who connect with Winter’s delivery, which means it inherently excludes those who don’t.
The Visual Descent
Director Noel Paul’s music video operates as a visual thesis on audience, performance, and the violence beneath collective euphoria. It opens with a handheld camera pushing through a packed venue, capturing Geese performing with near-dispassionate precision.
Then the transformation. The camera switches to undercranked film, creating footage that moves with unnatural speed.
As Paul explained in an interview, the inspiration came from medieval paintings of damned souls and Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro torture depictions.
The undercranking emphasises vibe over reference, letting imagery register emotionally rather than intellectually.
The crowd begins to convulse. Concert euphoria curdles into something darker. Audience members assault each other, the violence escalating until they’re literally consuming one another.
The visual reference to Goya’s ‘Saturn Devouring His Son’ translates the painting’s raw horror into a thesis about crowds, consumption, and the thin line between celebration and carnage.
Within Getting Killed
Released 26 September via Partisan Records, Getting Killed represents exactly what ‘Taxes’ promised: Geese finding confidence in their idiosyncrasies whilst tightening compositional focus.
Critical reception has been overwhelming. NME proclaimed the band ‘on the verge of proper cult superstardom,’ whilst The Line of Best Fit called it ‘the sort of album that makes you reconsider the last album you considered great.’
Angry Metal Guy noted how ‘noisier tracks move seamlessly into the more melodic,’ pointing to the transition from ‘Bow Down’ to the ‘explosive Taxes’ as evidence of intentionality behind the album’s controlled chaos.
Year-End Recognition
Pitchfork ranked ‘Taxes’ the 10th best song of 2025, noting how it ‘stalks and sways on hollow, death-rattling drums and is reborn at its coda, exploding into a raucous pop melody.’
The band’s recent Brooklyn Paramount shows showcased how the track has evolved live. What works on record as a carefully constructed three-minute statement becomes something looser, more dangerous in performance.
Released in July during escalating debates over government spending, ‘Taxes’ gained additional weight as autumn brought more conflict over where collective resources actually go.
Why It Endures
Year-end retrospectives position Getting Killed amongst 2025’s essential releases. ‘Taxes’ stands as the track that best captures what critics identify as the album’s central achievement: contemporary chaos without being consumed by it.
Songs like this give voice to systemic frustration without offering false solutions.
The metaphor proves remarkably elastic. ‘Taxes’ can mean monetary obligation, emotional labour, surrendered dignity, or the countless ways modern existence extracts payment.
This universality explains why listeners keep connecting with a song that shouldn’t work: a track about resistance invoking crucifixion imagery and climaxing with a promise of deliberate heartbreak.
The Verdict
‘Taxes’ succeeds as a thesis statement that proved accurate. The track promised an album that would trust its audience without pandering. Getting Killed delivered, earning year-end list placements and critical declarations that Geese have become one of contemporary rock’s vital acts.
The track stands as one of 2025’s most compelling rock releases precisely because it refuses comfort. It acknowledges hell, questions whether we deserve it, then chooses defiance over acceptance.
Winter’s promise to break his own heart resonates because it’s both deeply personal and universally relatable.
Self-inflicted pain sometimes feels preferable to waiting for the inevitable external blow. ‘Taxes’ voices that impulse without romanticising it.
The song marks a turning point in Geese’s evolution from promising post-punk upstarts to one of contemporary rock’s most important voices.
This is the sound of a band that found its voice through confidence, not compromise, through knowing which complications matter.
Geese delivered something rare: a song that met 2025’s moment without being consumed by it.
As retrospectives solidify Getting Killed amongst the year’s essential releases, ‘Taxes’ stands as the defiant requiem that announced Geese had fully realised their promise.
The track remains a three-minute burst of controlled chaos, proof that rock music doesn’t need saving, just bands willing to play it with this much conviction.