It doesn’t start well, with the sound of that annoying air horn thing favoured by cheesy party DJs being the first sound you hear on We Are The Champions. Thankfully, it immediately picks up, and ‘Hey Friend’ lays down a pretty hypnotic groove for lava fuzz guitar layers to wander around. The duo of brothers Jake and Jamin Orrall do the new century rock duo thing as well as any, with a distinct dashing of 90s retroism to spice their indie-hipster schtick.
Over the course of the album’s 11 tracks a number of rock’s current and historical corners are mined, all with a unifying buzz of enthusiasm. The aforementioned ‘Hey Friend’ reminds me a lot of Siamese Dream era Smashing Pumpkins with its harmonised lead guitar parts and thick, grungy melodicism, a sound that appears throughout the album. Various shades of punk pop shine through in tracks such as ‘Cool Out’, ‘Shredder’ and ‘Stay Up Late’ (though the latter adds dashings of sitar, something of which The Ramones would never have dreamt), where melodies follow the root notes of the simple chord progressions over hyperactive drums. At other times, such as ‘Bummer’, ‘Mellow Out’s and album closer ‘Wastoid Girl’, ghosts of classic Weezer are awoken as the melodies become pure treacle amidst the warm grit of fuzzy guitar riffage. ‘Ripper’ looks back to the original guitar/drums duo as both its bluesy interludes and punky verses evoke The White Stripes. The last couple of tracks keep the tempos relatively low and spice things up with more sitar. But what is most attractive across the album is that thick, warm guitar tone. Devoid of any trebly bite, I completely love it. Once the wah pedal kicks in midway through ‘Wastoid Girl’, I’m in guitar heaven.
Some of the adolescent cheesiness of that opening horn salvo can be heard in the lyrics. Opening with, “I keep thinking about your mum/You can tell me if you think it’s wrong” feels somewhat puerile and some of the simpler, repetitive choruses like “I know everybody stays up late” (‘Stay Up Late’) are hardly the stuff of poetry but, ultimately, this is party rock and, in that regard, the band draws a distinct lineage back to their mid/late 60s garage-punk forebears. It’s a rich history and I have to say I haven’t enjoyed buzzy pop this much since the pre-saturation Ratcat of my youth.
We Are The Champions is a fun album, without the cringe factor that the opening sound set me up for. I’m very thankful for that. While the variety of sounds from the duo are limited, they are wonderfully inviting and variety comes by way of songwriting and arrangements. No doubt Jeff The Brotherhood would be a perfect festival band. We Are The Champions is the album No Age wished they could write when they decided to try and create songs. Except Jeff The Brotherhood have nailed it and their results are much better.
Adrian Elmer
