If your body isn’t sore the day after a JEFF the Brotherhood concert, salve then you’re doing something wrong–this is doubly so if they hold a two-night residency at Great Scott. The Nashville duo of brothers Jake and Jamin Orrall did this on a few stops along their most recent cross-country trek, price playing a pair of gigs in smaller clubs instead of one larger show. For a band that’s as comfortable in tiny Somerville basements as festivals like Coachella, order such a move seems like a conscious effort to promote a much more intimate–and raucous–environment on stage and in the crowd.

JEFF’s still touring on 2012’s Hypnotic Nights, and featured a unique split set between the brothers Orrall and the addition of two supporting musicians on stage for the second half of each night. Despite gaining most of their mainstream attention in the last couple of years, JEFF has been around for most of the 2000s in their core duo formation that rests somewhere between White Stripes-esque riffage and the brash intensity of Japandroids (along with other noticeable strains of Ramones, Pink Floyd, DFA 1979, Metallica, and Weezer). The band’s more recent penchant for psych-prog influences on tracks like “Dark Energy” largely necessitated the second guitarist and synth player to truly fill out the sonic landscapes that populate much of what Jake called their “Hypnotic Nights journey.” Fans headbanged along to the metal chug of Heavy Days’ “Mind Ride” while the four-piece went on an extended jam made possible by the added layers of sound. Synth lines were the most obvious difference in the expanded lineup, with songs like “Hypnotic Winter” and “Wood Ox” reveling in bigger melodies thanks to the keyboardist’s notes. But it was their first sections as JEFF’s literal brotherhood that received more frenzied responses. From the chaotic dance-punk of “Noo Sixties” to show opening one-two punches like “U Got The Look” and “Staring At The Wall,” JEFF shined the brightest at their simplest. Even as a seemingly straightforward pair of guitar and drums, Jake and Jamin have considerable range especially on tracks like “Mellow Out” that runs on a chassis of 50s pop chorus sing-a-longs.

The two stage lineups felt like entirely different performances at times both during the shows and in hindsight, and not all songs were better off with the extra instruments. The mid-tempo bop of “Sixpack” slowed by a couple of notches and, paradoxically, thinned out. This tour’s lineup switches ultimately felt more like an experiment to test out how JEFF can perhaps grow their sound for potentially larger stages in the future. If so, it brings up a big question in regards to how a band can navigate a musical and biographical narrative founded upon a certain element of minimalism in the face of bigger (and, of course, more profitable) opportunities down the line–after all, Warner Brother’s partnership with the band’s Infinity Cat label grants JEFF global distribution of their music.

While JEFF’s studio recordings have grown increasingly interested in more diverse musical ideas, the band is still fundamentally a two-person punk rock operation. Aforementioned duos the White Stripes, DFA 1979, and Japandroids built monstrous touring personas around an experience unique to the live performance itself rather than looking to replicate in-studio instrumentation. That is, a band of guitar and drums–especially one like JEFF the Brotherhood–doesn’t really need to double down on another guitarist and keyboardist especially when they do little else than replicate the album you buy at a physical or digital store. As both a fan and critic, I’m personally conflicted given that JEFF were able to play a bounty of more expansive tracks that wouldn’t really have worked with only a duo, and yet I have faith that they would’ve found a way to turn them into a uniquely live feat. The division of each night into a hybrid of JEFF and JEFF+ felt awkward at best, and unnecessary at worst even if it doesn’t signal a subsequent tour of four.

Then again, JEFF the Brotherhood have been making music as a brotherhood for over a decade now, and it certainly isn’t that big of a deal if they simply wanted to try something new on this relatively limited tour. JEFF combine so many different strains of rock history that it was entirely unsurprising to see a teenage dude and his father at the front of the stage both nights, rocking equally hard in their own way. JEFF electrifies their crowds regardless of how many people make the music or if those crowds are of 50 or 500.

– Neil Patch