JEFF The Brotherhood
Wasted on the Dream
INFINITY CAT
2/10
Maybe it’s the extra three strings added to Jake Orall’s guitar. Perhaps it’s Jamin Orall’s overblown drum kit. It could be the added bassist and guest vocalists, or it might just be the amount of time put into the record, but something is seriously off. Wasted on the Dream, JEFF The Brotherhood’s eighth studio album (which was picked up by JTB’s own label after Warner dropped them), is as generic as a rock album can get. It’s full of stoner pop—as JEFF The Brotherhood should be—but fuck, is it boring. It has predictable melodies and ’00s pop-punk structure smashed together with the way-too-familiar ’70s guitar solos and classic rock over-drumming. There are some unpredictable moments (“Voyage Into Dreams,” “Black Cherry Pie”), but the entire album is flat and near-painful to listen to. This is a mighty big hole for JEFF The Brotherhood to climb out of, and tighter deadlines or a return to stripped-down instruments might not cut it. With this release, the duo’s dream and future is unclear, but one thing is for sure, listening to this album is definitely time wasted.
