album of the week: 3.1

Sleigh Bells

Reign of Terror

(2012)

why you'll love it: more party anthems, and a bit less fuzz

why you'll hate it: still a flimsy gimmick, diminishing returns

Sleigh Bells' sophomore jinx starts out with a live cut of the band addressing a roaring crowd. A little introduction to let you know that they are rockstars. Raw and beloved for how raw they are, introducing the track "True Shred Guitar". Wait… did I just hear a censorship bleep? This bleep doesn't just undermine their tough rock star facade, but it's clearly buried between the layers of the track. It only obscures the swear, not the guitar or crowd.

This is the problem I have with Sleigh Bells in general. It's all too artificial. Just as in their debut, Treats (2010), this isn't exactly a noise rock album. None of these songs are fundamentally apart from the norm or attacking the senses. Check out Zack Hill's Face Tat (2010). Those are songs that are conceived and constructed in a fucked up way. Sleigh Bells just writes normal catchy anthems, and lays a distortion filter over it. It's like how in photoshop, you can make a normal photograph look all "artsy" by playing with the filters.

I'm not saying Sleigh Bells needs to be more like Zack Hill, or that they're a couple phonies trying to convince you of being something that they aren't. It's just that this lo-fi filter they use is so shallow… so easy to poke holes through, that it really isn't worth it. Derek's guitar riffs on this album aren't even interesting, but Alexis' vocals are still really good. This is clearly a pop outfit, and all this arena rock nonsense is more of a distraction than flavor.

Forgetting all that, and judging this as a simple cathy album, this still is pretty weak. There are no standout tracks on this. There are a few good moments in "Demons" and "Born To Lose". "You Lost Me" slows things down in a satisfying way. But there are no "AB Machines" or "Tell Em". Nothing with a sting that grabs your attention. It's more of the same, without any knockout blows. Even the big praised tracks like "Comeback Kid" just make me want to listen to The Go! Team instead.

I don't know what Sleigh Bells' role in music is right now. To be Fischer Price's "My First Noise Rock Band"? That isn't so bad. There is nothing offensive about this album, but that is also its main problem. Maybe if there was. Maybe if they did aggressively go for artificiality, or pop, or noise, or anything. This is just that kind of neither here nor there wasted potential that leaves me more dissatisfied than something I would call straight up bad.