Geese – “Cobra”

For some of us who are of a generation before Geese’s target demo of Z, “Cobra” is a memory unlock of what it is to be of that wildly curious period in your musical listening life in when you had the time and bandwidth of attention to discover what came well before your own. Like, why was I, as a 22-year-old recent college grad, obsessed with everything Springsteen and the E Street band when most of my peers were rolling on molly to now mostly forgotten EDM flavors of the moment?

Well, the answer to that is quite frankly because of the Hold Steady, who put a seriously cool spin on your parents’ American classic rock, punk, and indie rock record collections in one sitting with a new edge to it. Add in the acquired taste sing-talking of an unassumingly charismatic frontman like Craig Finn, and it felt like finding someone who understood the stories being shared in the current scene with a knowledge of its necessary history. None of it was done out of irony, but in a sincerity for wanting to bridge the musical generational gaps.

“Cobra”, a highlight from Geese’s strange, unexpected revival on the genre’s entire history with Getting Killed, is sort of like the current young generation’s answer to that. Cameron Winter puckers his lips up like Mick Jagger toward his baby. Swap out a British accent for a New York quiver, and you get a little bit of the Boss’ swagger crossing over the George Washington. Vintage, sun-winced guitars arrival slightly bending its neck upward in tuning, the shuffling percussion, and basslines shrugging cozily up to them, the listen not only answers its own question in tempting the dance, but snake charms you into indulging the past through the eyes of a new set of shaggy-haired storytellers.