We Are The Champions

Sitting at the intersection of power pop and psychedelic rock, JEFF the Brotherhood deliver another set of hard rocking and sugary sweet jams on their sixth album, We Are the Champions. While their sound feels reigned in a bit after the wildness that was 2010's Heavy Days, the album finds brothers Jake and Jamin Orrall bringing plenty of fuzzed-out weirdness to the table from the get-go as they kick things off with the spacy swirl of "Hey Friend." As the album goes on, though, we see the Brotherhood refining their sound into something a little more straightforward, with songs like "Mellow Out" and "Stay Up Late" putting the emphasis more on melody and drive than on bong-fueled psychedelia -- though the tripped-out "Health and Strength" does feel like the band having one last freaked-out hurrah before bringing the album home with "Wastoid Girl"). While the album may not be as ambitious as Heavy Days, or as heavy as Hypnotic Nights, We Are the Champions marks an important transition for the band as they prepare to graduate from the ranks of humble indie rockers to a major-label act, adding focus to their sound without watering it down, and in the process, managing to keep everything that made JEFF the Brotherhood so special in the first place. ~ Gregory Heaney|