Stop. Just for a second. Take a breath before you panic: we’ve found our new Thom Yorke. He’s from New York, Brooklyn. He’s tall, with slightly greasy hair. But above all, he writes beautifully. The future is so bright for Cameron Winter, it’s almost dizzying. His first and so far only album, Heavy Metal, is quite simply a tour de force, a statement, one of the rare modern proofs that rock, in the most plural sense of the term, is not dead. The singer and main composer of Geese released his solo opus in 2024, but so late in the year that no publication was able to get their hands on it in their retrospectives, including PAN M 360. That has now been rectified.
23 years old. It’s hard to believe that Cameron Winter is so young, given his extraordinary writing skills. The New Yorker manages to combine warm soul – “Nausicaä (Love Will Be Revealed)”, “Love Takes Miles” – with a particularly original avant-folk sound – “Nina + Field of Cops” – all under a spectrum of indie, neo-classical and even Americana. And it’s impossible not to mention his voice: a somewhat wavering baritone timbre, not always in tune, but oh so recognizable. With Heavy Metal and Geese’s Getting Killed, Winter has established himself over the past year as one of the greatest references of his generation in songwriting, alongside Geordie Greep and MJ Lenderman. Just as The Strokes brilliantly did with millennials at the turn of the 21st century, Geese and its frontman are defining Generation Z. Its sound, its identity. Don’t expect to grasp Heavy Metal on the first listen. But the more you go back to it, the more you’ll become addicted. Last year’s Brat summer was fun. But now, let’s make way for Cameron Winter.
