Lord Jeff - Penny Heaven

Attention Hippies, the new summer jam for this fall is "Penny Heaven" by The Lord Jeff's. There really needs to be a brand of whisky named after these guys. So much here to enjoy production-wise as well as the general guitar shreddery customary to Lord Jeff's style, rooted firmly in good old honest rock n roll. Seemingly anthemic in nature, "Penny Heaven" is a good snapshot of what it sounds/feels like to live in massachussets. Also see DOM the band from Worcester for the sound of our basement parties. I think the Jeff stayed at DOM's place while they were on tour, maybe they have the same sound engineer wouldn't surprise me the way this song as well as the recent ironic hipster summer track "Spillwave" was produced seem quite similar very compressed with crisp twinkly highs.

Penny Heaven - Lord Jeff

Lord Jeff - Spillwave

Chilled out bass? auto-tuned vocals? Hippy-Drippy Nostalgia trip? Have the Lord Jeff gone mainstream? Are they indie cred? Who is the kuetest member? Is chillwave the greatest genre ever? Are you cool enough to be reading this right now? how many hits has hipster runoff gotten today?

RADIATOR REVIEWS: Lord Jeff - The Lord Jeff

I met the Lord Jeff at show in 2009 at a show at the Elevens in Northampton with Many Mansions and RAinSUn. Had a chance to get to know them a little better at their crib in Amherst where i tripped balls and watched MTV JAMS. I know some bloggers out there will say: "THE LORD JEFF ARE THE MOST CHILLWAVE BAND EVER" but im here to say in all seriousness that those guys are total indie douche bags. It's not hard to tell Lord Jeff influences include 60's and 70's Soul Music, Soulful rock bands like The Jimi Hendrix Experience & the Mothers of Invention, 13th Floor Elevators even Michael Jackson. I can see a J Mascis approach in the guitar leads which lean towards the distorted, overdriven, sloppy and expressive side of the spectrum. Sean Goggins voice reminds me a bit of George Harrison crossed with the voice of Tunde Adebimpe from TV On The Radio. I even could go as far as to compare the vocals to Alien Ant Farm. This self titled LP is the band's major debut on Thurston Moore's Record Label Ecstatic Peace. I got to say I'm really diggin' a lot of songs on here, not too many weak moments. The Drums here are recorded really well, got some nice panning on those drum fills. The Guitar work is excellent as well, some of those solos win more than Charlie Sheen. Style wise this is pretty familiar stuff, The Lord Jeff doesn't seem to reach too far out out of the blues scale on this LP aside from some jazzier moments and at the end when what sounds like an in studio drum solo fades into a live psychedelic-rock jam. I feel there could have been more instruments besides just guitars, drums, bass and vocals, even some more vocal harmonies, maybe some brass to add to the sexy funkiness. Others may disagree with me and enjoy the stripped down style in which the Lord Jeff seem to do a lot with a little. 8.7

reviewed by Mohamed El-Darwish RADIATOR COLLECTIVE 2011