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Alt/Punk | Stephanie Benson
July 30, 2012
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Rhapsody Radar 2012: Week 4

Rhapsody Radar 2012 #16: JEFF The Brotherhood

by Stephanie Benson

The thing with JEFF The Brotherhood is that they've been around for more than a decade. They have seven full-length albums, their own record label with their father (Infinity Cat Recordings) and even a live album released under Jack White's Third Man Records. So they may not be a new band by any means, but if they've been at a slow simmer for the last 10 years, then they're about to boil over in 2012.

While there is no JEFF in the band, the Nashville duo does comprise two brothers, Jack and Jamin Orrall, sons of musician/songwriter/producer Robert Ellis Orral, who has worked with talents from Taylor Swift to, um, Lindsay Lohan. So they certainly have music in the blood, and it's apparent on their recently released major-label debut, Hypnotic Nights, one of the most raucous rock records of the year -- and not just because they have a beer anthem called "Sixpack" ("l wanna cool out and get wasted").

Sure, there's booze-fueled, handclapping fun to be had, but the brothers also filter the garage power-pop of Weezer and the punk bop of The Ramones through a sort of grungy Nirvana-esque sieve, then add fuzzy psych-tinged power riffs, languid horns and moaning organ to the mix. Heck, they even kind of sound like Ozzy on a cover of Black Sabbath's eerie gospel ballad "Changes." The result is a righteous Bill and Ted time-travel trip through '70s rock excess and '90s alternative gloom that somehow reaches 2012 sounding weird, wild and undeniably fresh.

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