Jeff The Brotherhood – Heavy Days

Ever since Jay Reatard began re-popularizing garage rock and noise punk, critics have been heralding the resurgence as a welcome back-to-the-basics movement.  Odd underground acts like Wavves have been popping up as frontrunners, and the pitchfork crowd has been going nuts.  But personally, I have yet to find the lure of the noise pop genre, so despite having had multiple opportunities, I’ve yet to bother acquiring anything by Reatard or Wavves. Which brings me to this review’s focus, Jeff The Brotherhood’s third full-length album, Heavy Days.  The album falls right in line with current trends, poising these two Nashville brothers for big things.

Despite still sitting on the genre’s sidelines, I warmed up to Heavy Days fairly quickly.  Jeff The Brotherhood wraps most of their songs around a catchy core, without ever succumbing to the temptation of drowning out their melodies in a blanket of noise.  It’s nothing terribly revolutionary – those familiar with Dirtnap Records acts like The Revisions shouldn’t find any major surprises here – but for the most part Heavy Days follows a fairly appealing formula.

Heavy Days’ most interesting tracks feature little “extras.”  The first couple of tracks, specifically “Heavy Days” and “You Got The Look,” while somewhat generic on first listen, remind me of Bad Religionexperimenting with Husker Du influenced 80’s pop circa their disowned Into The Unknown album (and I say that with love and affection).  It’s a fairly safe start, but soon after, the brothers throw out convention and just meander around, playing with fun guitar riffs and catchy tunes.  “Heavy Krishna” takes an instrumental approach, focusing on repetition and simple solos to do most of the heavy lifting.  Other tracks like “The Tropics” slow the tempo down to a psychedelic trance, inviting the listener to mellow out and sway to the beat.  In each case, Jeff The Brotherhood knows how to milk every last drop out of their simple execution.

Those enjoying the current garage rock resurgence should definitely check out Heavy Days.  If a skeptic like me can have a pretty good time with it, then those already fully embracing the movement should loveJeff the Brotherhood’s scratchy production values and simple execution.