JEFF THE BROTHERHOOD
Heavy Days
(INFINITY CAT)
[Rating: 4 stars]
In 2004, Nashvillian brothers Jake and Jamin Orrall formed Be Your Own Pet whose kicked-out, teenage jams, led by a mouthy, female singer, eventually impressed legendary Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore enough to include them on tour. However, Jake was never actually crowned with these laurels because he quit the band to visit Iceland, before BYOP even really Pitchfork-ed its way to critical surface. Oddly, perhaps brotherly, younger brother Jamin quit BYOP during their career pinnacle, shortly after Jake’s U.S. reentry. The Brotherhood then played multitudinous Nashville shows, moved to Chicago, but returned to Music City and played countless more. Purely, dually masculine, JEFF’s live-show rivals BYOP’s: hyperactive—nevertheless in-sync—psychedelic rock. After three years of five-buck gigs, JEFF have released Heavy Days, a culmination, but also somewhat unexpectedly, an accreditation of pop-rock. “Heavy-Krishna” embodies their penchant for rubbery-riffed layers of upbeat repetition, but quintessential “Bone Jam” demonstrates the band’s two-chorded capacity to hum, drum and capture the listener’s soft spot.