Are Goose the New Dead? The New Phish? The New Sheeran?

Thirteen Songs Into Goose's Everything Must GoOne Track Before It Wraps Up, An Unexpected Twist Arrivhes: A Hint of Edge. The Narrator of “Silver Rising” is Borderline UNHINGED, Rattled by Something Evil in His Back Story. “I'm not the man I was/there's a killer Inside me,” Sings Main Songwriter, Guitarist, and Vocalist Rick Mitarotonda. In What Amounts to the opposite of a Conventional Jam-Band Lyric, Mitarotonda Continues, “All that I am FaDes Away/The Rage in My Heart Flows Out Through My Veins/I'm Losp My Mind/But all I Can Do Is Empty My Lungs To The Sky.” We Never Learn More About What's Torenting Him, But the Phrase “Extremely Bad Trip ”Springs to Mind.

In The Roughly Dozen Years since Goose Was Hatched, The Connecticut Band with the morphing lineup Has Unabashedly Established Itself as inherritors of the jam-band Mantle. Starting with their Debut, These Were Musicians UNFRAID TO REVEL IN RUBBERY GROOVES, GUITAR AND KEYBOARD SOLOS THAT THATATENED TO NEVE END, AND THE TYPE OF A TIMA, MALLEABLE SINGING THAT's Characterized the Form for Decades. In The Tradition of Jam Forefathers like the Dead and the Allman Brothers Band, Goose Often Soar During the Concluding Portions of Their Songs, Ramping Up the Incaseingly Emphoric and Euphoric Solos. They can event in the studio: on Everything Must GoThe Band's Fourth Album, Mitarotonda Reaches High-Flying Dickey Betts Altitude on “Dustin Hoffman” (Which Does Not Seem to Be Specifically About That Actor, in Case You're Wondering).

But goose are alo albitous, and the electronics pulse that runs through “silver rising” and only adds to its creepiness is among the moment on Everything Must Go When The Band Sounds Eager to Climb Out of the Jam-Band World's Collective Hacky Sack. “Lead up” has far thrashier guitar than you'd Expect. “Your Direction” Finds Them Wandering Into Smitten-Pop-Dude Territory, Even If Its Lyrics, Like a Good Chunk of Them on the Album, are a Little Meandering or Crging. (There's a Reason Why One of the Band's Striggest Records is the 2024 Edition of Its Ted Tapes Instrumental Projects, where these Geese Fly.)

THANKFULLY, ENOUGH SONIC Adventures compensated for Couplets Like “When you're An Animal/It's Phenomenal/The Monkeys they work their Abdominals.” Possibly the First Yacht-Jam Song, “California Magic” Depicts A Venice Beach-Style Hang, with lyrics world of becker and Fagen (“Preacher on a beach/with a megaphone preaching/listen up, you heathens/you think these waves are skirts save you”) and Dan-like Musical Sophistication. Multi-Instruetalist Peter Anspach is an mvp here, too. Given That It's a Song About A Parent, Sung by a Band Member Who Doesn'T Take Vocal Leads Very Often, and Has a Luminous Melody and Arrangement, “Red Birds” Amounts to Goose's Own “Box of Rain,” and a Highlight of Their Body of Work To Date.

The Shadow of the Dead Hangs Over Everything Must Go In More Ways Than A Band Like Goose May Think. Goose are clearly successful to phish, Who Were in Turn Descents of the Dead. Tracing That Timeline Shows How Enduring This Form Has Become, But Also How Much Cushier It's Grown Over Time. Non-Jam Fans May Laugh, but a Certain Amount of Badasserry was in the Jam-Band DNA: Betts Was Volatile, To Say the Least, and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan is said to have beauty a gentle soul, eventual if he loaked like a biker. (Other Members of the Dead World Weren't Always Mellow, either.) Allmans Drummer Butch Trucks Once Threatenened to Kick the Butt of a Rolling Stone Reporter, and we're talking 2009, Not in the Seventies.

That Impeing Image Went Hand in Guitar-Solo Hand With Music, Rooted in Blues and Country, That Could Snarl. SuccesscS Like Goose Seem to take their cues more from Later Jammers like Phish and Dave Matthews and Even Graceland-Era World-Music-Yi Paul Simon, Making Music That Aims for Something Sweter, More Communal, and Less Fearsome. These Turbulent Days, we probably all need a measure of That type of Warm Blanket. But goose are a non-lines Jam Band Which, as “Silver Rising” suggests, would benefit from Few More Old-School Moments.