“If you want me to pay my taxes,” sang the 23-year-old man on the stage, loudly accompanied by the thousands in front of him, “You better come over with a crucifix/ You’re gonna have to nail me down.”

Last Thursday night, I stood in a field in Dorset, and watched the headlining attraction on the first night of the End of the Road festival. Geese are a rock group from New York, led by the extremely talented Cameron Winter, who has a lot to say, and an often gnomic, veiled way of saying it. But the meaning of the most celebrated lines on his band’s most recent album – Getting Killed – might be clearer than a lot of the rest.

There are hundreds of different interpretations online of a song simply called Taxes, from death and martyrdom to the avoidance of responsibility. He may just, I suppose, be telling the Internal Revenue Service to go away in the cause of small-state libertarianism. But at the risk of ridicule, I’ll opt for the most literal and crowd-pleasing reading: that Winter is inspirationally updating the idea of rock music sneering at the powers that be and rejecting whatever it is they want. When I first heard those lines, in fact, I imagined him being cornered by Donald Trump, JD Vance and some or other Maga goon squad, wearily exhaling and sending them on their way.

For at least a decade now, rock – which is to say, stuff largely made with guitars and mostly delivered by bands – has been in an increasing state of cultural eclipse. Its presence in what remains of the singles chart is usually minimal-to-nonexistent; it tends to fare better in the albums rankings, but chronically lacks its old ability to push itself to the forefront of its era.

It’s striking, then, that Geese’s somewhat belated rise has been powered by an album that consummately embodies its time, has received praise to match and is evidently........

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