More music is released in a single day in 2024 than all of 1989 combined. I’ve always struggled with the overwhelming fact that more music is produced than I’ll ever be able to listen to. However, I recently came across an album that actually eased my panic about the volume of creation. Cameron Winter’s debut album, Heavy Metal, is a collection of songs that literally stopped me in my tracks. Upon hearing the first few notes, I instantly recognized this project as something special, something that would become vital to my own listening journey.
Despite the success he’s found as the frontman of Geese, Cameron Winter has drifted solo. Heavy Metal is completely different from Geese’s country-tinged psych-rock jam sound. This project is truly a solo album, a culmination of Winter’s songwriting talent and life experience. I was a bit shocked to learn Winter is 22, only one year older than myself. And yet this closeness in age may be why I was so drawn to Heavy Metal. Winter and I have experienced life at a different trajectory (I don’t make music, I’m not in a band, and I have never toured with King Gizzard), but being a 20-something-year-old appears to wield a shared experience – one shrouded with uncertainty, reinvention, and an unwarranted wisdom about the world.
Heavy Metal takes my favorite approach to songwriting – slightly absurd, emotionally charged, and peppered with metaphor. One review, featured on Winter’s website, confessed “the first few songs I thought were like obscure covers of successful musicians because I think I underestimated his songwriting.” I’m a little embarrassed to admit I had the same reaction. “Nausicaa (Love Will Be Revealed)” had such a familiar quality that I actually Googled the lyrics to check if it was a cover song.
The album opens with “I will keep breaking cups until my left hand looks wrong.” These lyrics capture more of a feeling than anything – of inadequacy, of perseverance, of struggle. And then comes the phrase that instantly made me fall in love with the album – “I will keep rolling until the best shirt falls off, until the conga line is a thousand chickens long.” This feels very Dylan-esque to me. There’s also a surreal element with the chickens, reminiscent of something from an Adrianne Lenker song. I’m weary to compare Winter to other songwriters because I don’t want to detract from his own talent. But I also think it’s what makes the album great – many influences have contributed to something that feels uniquely Cameron Winter.
Since turning 21 this year, the song “Drinking Age” feels particularly relevant to me. Cameron reflects “I don’t know if I’m ever gonna stop reminding myself everything is lying / Today I met who I’m gonna be from now on and he’s a piece of shit.” Reinvention is a natural part of young adulthood, where one is forced to piece together foundations of an independent, grown-up life. Towards the end of the song, Winter states “This is who I’m gonna be / this way, a piece of meat.” The way we view ourselves is sometimes misaligned from reality. We must learn to live with the disconnect, or find a way to correct it. But even through grappling with the complexities of human nature, each person is just a piece of meat floating on a rock. Simple as that.
Winter has clearly felt fed up with the world. Some of my favorite lyrics of loathing include…
“Your building is full of people who hate you and bite off fingers.”
“I’ve been getting spanked with everybody lately.”
“I am bitching to the wall of my long-armed and knuckle scraping ways.”
And put quite simply… “Fuck these people.”
But within moments of feeling washed up and used by the world, Winter details moments that seem sort of beautiful, such as…
“I’ll talk to every crowded room, I’ll go to great carnivals of pain and fight, entire fields of cops to keep a coconut in my hand.”
Heavy Metal has a very enigmatic quality. It was recorded in a string of Guitar Centers across New York, features a five-year-old bassist named Jaden, and has been described by Winter as an “inconvenience” and “a pain in the ass” to create. Winter doesn’t take himself too seriously… while at the same time very seriously examining the internal complexities of himself and his life experience. Whether Heavy Metal is just a one-off for Winter, or a gateway to something more, this album has already taken a special place in my life. “Rest assured, my solo album unique,” he says, “because barely anybody knows who my band is, I’m young and not afraid of living with my parents and I’m free to chase whatever ideas I want.”
Cameron Winter is also a part of Chicago’s Tomorrow Never Knows Festival, where he’ll be performing at Sleeping Village on January 18. Click here for tickets and more information.