Cameron Winter – Heavy Metal
By Kate Trebra | Top Tracks: “The Rolling Stones”, “Nina + Field of Cops”, and “$0”
Cameron Winter – Heavy Metal
Cameron Winter’s Heavy Metal is an album made between the margins of intense emotion and liminal sound. Best known as the frontman of New York-based band Geese, Winter steps away from the band’s expansive sound to craft an album that leaves your head spinning, pulling you into a world where everything is hazy and strained. Filled with metaphors of decay and reluctance, Heavy Metal pieces together a mosaic of avant-garde sound and an all-consuming sickness.
On a first listen, the stylistic choices of Winter’s singing stand out – his warbling voice, sometimes falsetto, sometimes dangerously low, adds to the complexities of the melodies he constructs. He opens the album with “The Rolling Stones,” a desperate plea to keep moving forward at the expense of self-destructive behaviors. At only 22 years old, Winter wishes to meet a similar fate to both Brian Jones and John Hinckley Jr., soundtracked by plucky guitar.
In “Nausicaä (Love Will Be Revealed),” a reimagined version of the love story between Nausicaä and Odysseus from Homer’s Odyssey, Winter dips into a shallow groove and sheds the acoustic lining in his last song. On both “Love Takes Miles” and “Drinking Age,” Winter takes the opportunity to show off his vocal range, jumping from belting to mutters of what he once was.
“I am full of heavy metals,” Winter croaks out, almost faltering, on the opening lines of “Cancer of the Skull.” “I am a heavy metal man.” The inherent sadness of a pair of empty baby shoes, rotted teeth, and stiff fingers all turn and twist and paint the image of a deadbeat father trying to force his way into a space that no longer fits him.
Throughout the album, the mononymous Nina is constantly mentioned. From having her name on “Nina + Field of Cops,” to being called out in “$0,” Nina is what Winter bases his meaning on. “I’m not nothing,” he says defiantly over an echoing piano ballad, “But when you lie on the piano / I am reminded I am stupid.”
The swelling piano overlaps with Winter’s stacked wails on “$0.” The longest song on the album, totaling just under seven minutes, leaves a jagged impression, rough and sharp enough to draw blood. Vocal modulations screech and Winter’s stream of consciousness takes center stage with manic religious rambling: “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.” Winter seemingly comes to an epiphany after finding his worth to be nothing more than spare change clutched in someone’s palm.
The tempo slows on “Can’t Keep Anything,” Winter’s voice gravelly and drained. He closes the album with the same guitar it started with, threading all his songs together haphazardly. References build on each other in Heavy Metal, from brown hair scattered on the floor in “The Rolling Stones” to dreams about being bald in “Nina + Field of Cops,” creating a loop that is impossible to put down.
Composed in the back of taxi cabs, cold and empty basements, and in the middle of public streets, Heavy Metal draws on the bustle and strife of a big city, simultaneously filled with both suffering and rebirth. Though Heavy Metal is a glimpse inside a tortured songwriter’s mind, Cameron Winter drops his veiled obscurity and invites the listener into his world for a transformative forty-four minutes.
You can listen to Cameron Winter on Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, and YouTube.
