Music reviews: Geese, Jeff Tweedy, and Mariah Carey

Jeff Tweedy performs on the The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Jeff Tweedy “can still string together a few chords and sentences and make it feel like magic.”

(Image credit: Scott Kowalchyk / CBS / Getty Images)

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‘Getting Killed’ by Geese
‘Twilight Override’ by Jeff Tweedy
‘Here for It All’ by Mariah Carey

‘Getting Killed’ by Geese

With its fourth album, Geese “has achieved something miraculous,” said Spencer Kornhaber in The Atlantic. Though the young four-piece band from Brooklyn still has room for growth, it has now proved that rock can still move forward in “electrifying ways.” The group’s best LP yet “stages an intense and unpredictable melee between punk and free jazz,” drawing from influences as diverse as Radiohead, Pixies, the Stones, and Frank Zappa to create a record “capable of piercing the most serious cases of burnout.” At times, singer and songwriter Cameron Winter “sounds like Chewbacca doing opera,” but his groggy crooning “captures what it’s like to feel unfulfilled in a land of unlimited convenience and choice: weird and pathetic.” Geese’s “unapologetic oddness” may “put a ceiling on its mainstream success,” said Mark Richardson in The Wall Street Journal. Still, “this band has swagger,” and behind the music’s “meandering song structures” and “dissonant textures,” every track “has a core of catchiness.” Not since the Strokes has a New York City band generated as much hype, yet Getting Killed “easily delivers on its lofty expectations.”

‘Twilight Override’ by Jeff Tweedy

Jeff Tweedy, at 58, “remains a national treasure,” said Chris DeVille in Stereogum. For non-devotees, the idea of a 30-song triple album from the Wilco frontman could be “intimidating, maybe even exhausting.” But Tweedy isn’t on autopilot here. Though his music isn’t as bold or gutting as it once was, “he’s still taking creative risks, leaping around between styles,” and the guy “can still string together a few chords and sentences and make it feel like magic.” Twilight Override mixes “rousing rockers and somber ballads, deep vulnerability and wry humor,” all graced by Tweedy’s “weary rasp” and a backing band featuring two of his sons. And just when a stretch of songs blurs together, “one of the stunners breaks through.” Think of this album as Tweedy’s “epic-scale response” to America’s prevailing malaise, said Mark Deming in AllMusic. There’s little overt reference to the state of the nation in these songs, and they “rarely sound like they’re brimming with joy,” because Tweedy doesn’t do joy. Even so, as manifestations of craft and fecund creativity, “they act as an affirmation of life and hope.” The result is Tweedy’s “best solo album to date.”

‘Here for It All’ by Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey’s first full-length since 2018 is “exactly the type of album she should be making 35 years into her career,” said Tim Chan in Rolling Stone. “After decades of pushing her vocals to the brink and pouring her heart out,” she’s pulled together an 11-song set that feels relaxed and carefree. And while her legendary voice remains “present and powerful,” these jazz-and soul-flavored songs often need no vocal fireworks. They “may not ignite a stadium,” but they’d “play well in a piano lounge.” Yes, you’ll hear “plenty of the kind of creamy, luscious vocals Carey’s known for,” said Rich Juzwiak in Pitchfork. On the other hand, she’s “often hoarse” here, taking a no-secrets approach to the weathering of her pipes. The grit now in her voice teases out the soul in Paul McCartney’s 1973 ballad “My Love” and reminds us of what she’s survived in “Mi,” the coyly self-centered opener. Carey, at 56, is asking her listeners “to be here for it all: the lyrical indulgences, the flaws in her instrument, her endless self-absorption.” And while the album, for her, is a minor work, few minor works by other artists are “so consistently enjoyable.”