Thirteen songs into Goose’s Everything Must Go, one track before it wraps up, an unexpected twist arrives: 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 losing my mind/But all I can do is empty my lungs to the sky.” We never learn more about what’s tormenting 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 inheritors of the jam-band mantle. Starting with their debut, these were musicians unafraid to revel in rubbery grooves, guitar and keyboard solos that threatened to never end, and the type of affable, 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 increasingly emphatic and euphoric solos. They can even do that in the studio: On Everything Must Go, the 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 also ambitious, and the electronica pulse that runs through “Silver Rising” and only adds to its creepiness is among the moments 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 cringe. (There’s a reason why one of the best’s strongest records is the 2024 edition of their Ted Tapes instrumental projects, where these Geese fly.)
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Thankfully, enough sonic adventures compensate 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 worthy of Becker and Fagen (“Preacher on a beach/With a megaphone preaching/Listen up you heathens/You think these waves are gonna save you”) and Dan-like musical sophistication. Multi-instrumentalist 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.
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The shadow of the Dead hangs over Everything Must Go in more ways than a band like Goose may think. Goose are clearly successors to Phish, who were in turn descendants 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 bad-assery was in the jam-band DNA: Betts was volatile, to say the least, and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan is said to have been a gentle soul, even if he looked like a biker. (Other members of the Dead world weren’t always mellow, either.) Allmans drummer Butch Trucks once threatened to kick the butt of a Rolling Stone reporter, and we’re talking 2009, not in the Seventies.
That imposing image went hand in guitar-solo hand with music, rooted in blues and country, that could snarl. Successors like Goose seem to take their cues more from later jammers like Phish and Dave Matthews and even Graceland-era world musicy Paul Simon, making music that aims for something sweeter, more communal and less fearsome. These turbulent days, we’re probably all in need a measure of that type of warm blanket. But Goose are a non-traditional jam band who, as “Silver Rising” suggests, would benefit from a few more old-school moments.
