Hi, everyone. Bigthony Crytano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new Cameron Winter album, Heavy Metal.

It is his debut, in fact, but if you are at all familiar with the New York underground rock circuit at the moment, Cameron's voice is one you should already be familiar with. After all, he also doubles as the frontman for the rock band Geese, who is responsible for one of my favorite records of 2023, that would be 3D Country. A record that simultaneously has an old soul to it, definitely some classic hard rock vibes flowing throughout the tracks on this LP.

But as old-headed as some of the influences on this record are, there's still a young, rebellious experimental spirit to the song structures and the performances that keep Geese's sound fresh. On this record, they're really playing with the ferocity of bands such as MC5 as well as the Stooges, groups that, again, had an old old hard rock flavor, but their presentation really laid the groundwork for punk music and everything to come after. So it's not quite protopunk, but post protopunk, not quite dad rock, but my dad walked out on me rock.

So yeah, Geese inhabits an interesting creative space. Their sound really should be old and stale in this current music paradigm, but it just isn't. Again, they're still a young and up and coming band who just had their first big breakout album. You would figure a majority of all of their energy would be going toward just performing and spreading the gospel of their music. And certainly, they have been doing that to some extent with some interesting festival placements as well as the 4D Country EP they released not too long after the 3D Country album, which proved that there was still a lot of heat on the cutting room floor after those sessions were said and done.

But we still have a surprise pivot here with Cameron dropping a solo release in the midst of the holiday chaos late last year. And it It didn't exactly stop me in my tracks at the time. Obviously, I had a lot going on with year end lists and the like, so I really wasn't in the headspace at the time to dive into this record, especially with it being as dense and at some point, out there as it is.

So despite a somewhat overwhelming initial reaction, I promised myself I would eventually come back around to the record and give it another shot, especially since I have loved so much of Geese's material, although I still had my reservations going into the album. Is it not too early to release a record such as this? Is Cameron ready as a songwriter to be dropping this record with Geese still on the rise? But you know what? Given the quality of the material on this record and how fully formed Cameron comes across as a songwriter on this release, I would say he is ready, even if the fans aren't.

Now, to anyone watching this, I would say, don't go into this album with Geese-type expectations in terms of guitar work and intensity and overall vibe. I would actually even say this record is worth giving a shot if you're not a fan of the band. Maybe if you are more of an oddball singer-songwriter buff with an outsider edge. Because I will say, on the surface, Cameron's vocal approach isn't exactly orthodox because those weird, drawling, froggy, Morrison-esque inflections he's known for on many a Geese track. He somehow leans even harder into them on this record, whose instrumentation presents Cameron in just a much more intimate context.

So it is a bit of an adjustment hearing him do this deep caterwauling over much gentler instrumentation and a lot of dry production, slow and steady instrumentation. It's giving freaky but soulful on multiple ballads where Cameron is just rapid fire spewing the most vulnerable and loving, as well as hilarious thoughts bumping around in his head.

Take the opening track, "The Rolling Stones", for example, where Cameron is in his own way describing an undying devotion of sorts, but he's using the most unhinged similes and comparisons to get that across. Opening lines like, "I will keep breaking cups until my left hand looks wrong / Until my miracle drugs write the miracle song." He says this before jumping into an out-of-control reference to the death of founding a Rolling Stones member, Brian Jones, who passed away in a swimming pool. I mean, this wouldn't be the first time such a thing was referenced in poetry or song, but Cameron's instance of it here is definitely something. But this isn't even the craziest part of the song. Like, "Hinkley's son / I was born to dance with a candy gun / Toward the president's ass." Yeah, the song is a real mix between sounding gorgeous and like it wouldn't hurt a fly, but simultaneously, some of these lyrics are just uncompromisingly dark and almost read like something out of a Madman's Manifesto.

Following this, the vibes generally are lighter on the track "Nausicaa (Love Will Be Revealed)", which is a swaying and sensual ballad, which I think is the most Geese-like moment on the entire record. The electric keys and string harmonies and vocal harmonies are awesome. And yeah, even though there is that common ground with Geese, I wouldn't say this track is redundant by any stretch of the imagination. As, again, vocally and lyrically, I think Cameron is going for something a little bit sweeter this time around. And it really is a vulnerable track between the way he is laying it all out on the line romantically in the lyrics, but also just like his mutant howls that he's hitting on some of these vocal leads, it's like he's really revealing to this person of interest who he is emotionally vocally. But yeah, as strange as the performance is in some respects, there's still a swagger beyond words to this song and performance.

Then "Love Takes Miles" is, to my ears, just a straight-up smash. It's really a direct and catchy rockin' piano tune that if you wrapped it up in different production, I could see it on the Billboard charts. It's just that Cameron's performance style and the instrumentation he surrounds the track with is really anything but formal. But honestly, I think the way he goes about building this song and its sound has its own character to it that I love.

We switch gears on "Drinking Age", which is a somber, skeletal, spotlit piano motif. Not the sharpest track here in terms of song structure, but it's still stunning for what it is as the track gradually increases intensity along its run time and eventually hits this lush and wonderful peak with the pianos and vocals and woodwinds and what sounds like vibraphone, too, sounding off. There's an interesting contrast here because the instrumentation is so beautiful; meanwhile, Cameron is just croaking his way through these despondent lyrics, going over themes of what reads like destiny and futility until he eventually hits these just howling vocal leads that once again make for an immense emotional peak on the album.

I feel like "Cancer of the Skull" goes back to the opener's formula of giving us a ballad that is very easy on the ears, that is pretty, might not necessarily snap you to attention if it weren't for Cameron's rambling vocals and wild pen game. As he says on the chorus, "Oh, Cancer of the fingers / And the hands of a beginner / Songs are meant for bad singers / I can't reach / Cancer of the '80s / I was beat with ukulele / Oh, Songs are for a hundred ugly babies I can't feed / My face is on the dollars / I am one dollar in your hand."

I could keep reading, but almost every line from here is a whopper. That leaves me thinking Cameron is either very much in need of a wellness check or he's just not from this planet.

Kicking off the second half of the album, I feel like there is a little bit of a lull in the tracklist. "Try As I May" has a decent start to it, but its plodding instrumentation really goes nowhere fast as there's not a whole lot of development across the song's run time. "We're Thinking the Same Thing" has some decent moments in it as well, but it's similarly stagnant.

However, some of the most fire passages of this entire record turn up in its last leg. With "Nina + Field of Cops", which I think is the most immense track on the record, we have a lot of theatrical singing and exasperated piano, just trying to create as much of a ruckus as possible. It slowly becomes clear that Cameron is conjuring almost like a spiritual, transcendental moment of sorts on this track, given just how gospel-inspired a lot of the music and vocals are.

This is pretty fitting, especially given that I feel like these influences and these feelings are really nailed down on the following "$0", whose title and lyrics are a bit of a callback to earlier moments on the record where Cameron refers to himself as someone who feels like a zero dollar man. The track musically meanders for a bit until eventually launching off into this rambling spiritual breakdown of sorts, where Cameron says, "God is real / God is real / I'm not kidding / God is actually real / I'm not kidding this time / I think God is actually for real / God is real / God is actually real / God is real / I wouldn't joke about this / I'm not kidding this time." Which is just about the oddest way to state your religious experience in the middle of a song.

The closer, I think, is a really sweet moment to end things on. I think Cameron just really made a special singer-songwriter record here, one that is both gorgeous and also challenging at points, with vocals that are unlike any other you're going to on any similar album, aesthetically or genre-wise this year.

But yeah, pretty fire release on this one and a record that I'm glad I gave a bit more time, so I had the opportunity to really come around on it. I'm feeling a strong 8 to a light 9 on this thing.

Anthony Fantano. Cameron Winter. Heavy Metal. Forever.