Sleigh Bells – Treats

Thu 1st Jul, 2010 in Music Reviews

Simply put, Sleigh Bells sound like nothing you have ever heard before – instrumentalist and producer Derek Miller is a former member of Poison The Well, a hardcore group known for being, well, pretty hardcore. Singer Alexis Krauss was once-upon-a-time in a sugary pop group called Rubyblue, who never seem to have done much. But that is the sound – savage, riff-laden backing with a sweet, girlish voice over the top.

It sounds like a recipe for disaster, but 30 seconds in to Tell ‘Em you’ll wonder why nobody thought of this before. It is rough, and savage, and completely rock and roll. The first time I heard Crown On The Ground, I finally understood what Satisfaction must have sounded like in 1963. It was so raw, so elemental, so immediately arresting. It took what is essentially a hip-hop beat, added a biting guitar riff, turned the levels up to 11, and then put this sweet voice full of sass and attitude over the top of that, and then turned all the levels up to 12 for good measure. It grabbed me, and refused to let me go – so much so that when the song finished I felt deprived, as though missing a vital ingredient of myself. I think I listened to it half a dozen times in a row.

Miller pushes all of the production up into the red, to the point where you worry that your speakers are about to blow. But all the chaos is tightly controlled – both by Miller, who seems to know exactly when to hold back and when to push harder, and by Krauss, whose voice over the top of everything takes the edge off the viciousness and brings it back to listenable.

Krauss’ vocals come to the fore on tracks like Run The Heart and Rill Rill, the latter sampling a guitar line from Funkadelic to form the backbone of a song that is so simple and so straightforward, yet catchy as all get out. And on Kids, Krauss updates Moon Unit Zappa’s soliloquy from Valley Girl for the 21st century.

Then there’s Infinity Guitars, another track that was available in demo form. On the album, though, it is given even more muscle. The handclaps have always been absurdly catchy, but now the build is all the more pronounced, setting you up perfectly for the mother of all drops with 40 seconds to go.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this album is that, while there are songs that remind you of other bands, it all sounds fresh, as though your ears are hearing these things properly for the first time. Certainly, Straight A’s is reminiscent of someone like Crystal Castles, even early Yeah Yeah Yeahs, now with added sonic violence. Again we see restraint at the same time as letting loose – the song is the most brutal of the album, fast, loud, and almost unbearable, but it only lasts 1:32, so you don’t get the chance to skip to the next song.

The next song, by the way, is A/B Machines, which was the only track that was a bit of a let down for me. However, it was only disappointing because the demo version was bigger, and they way it dropped at the end made you think the world was about to end. It’s awesome. But if I had never heard it before, I would have been hooked by the air-raid guitar line, or the kick drum so insistent that it feels like it’s kicking a hole in your chest.

Album closer Treats begins with that same guitar tone from the start of The Smiths’ How Soon Is Now, before pulling up short with a giant one-two punch of drum and guitar. And then that’s it.

At only 32 minutes long Treats is shorter than some other bands’ guitar solos. But that is the secret to this whole thing – restraint. It would be so easy to overdo it, both the individual songs and the album as a whole, but the reason it works is that it leaves you wanting more.

Sleigh Bells is unquestionably THE buzz band of 2010, and it remains to be seen whether they are a one-trick pony. It’s entirely possible that the brilliance of the first act will prove impossible to live up to, and any future instalments are doomed to fall short of the perfect storm that culminated in this album.

But, really, who cares? Even if our children aren’t listening to it in 20 years, Sleigh Bells are right here, right now, and every song sounds like an invitation to the coolest, loosest party in town. Some things don’t last, but that makes their moment all the more precious.