Sleigh Bells - Reign of Terror review

I've spent the last week listening to the new Sleigh Bells record and it almost feels hard to review it objectively. The reason I say this is because I find their sound so irresistible - big guitars, monstrous drums, girly vocals and while they've dialed it back a notch from their debut album Treats, it sounds fucking undeniable and awesome. I guess the root of my trepidation is that I loved Treats immediately but found it had a pretty short shelf life. While Reign of Terror has that similar sugar rush that makes you love it instantly, it does seem more considered with greater dimensionality, dynamics and diversity across the album which makes it a more enjoyable listen rather than a purely visceral one.

A prime example is Born to Lose which shudders and lurches as it begins but makes more and more sense as it progresses as it embraces its melodic core. The bombast of its opening drops away for the final section of the song revealing a delicate foundation. Even better is the wistful End of the Line which positively floats on minimal instrumentation and Alexis Krauss's beautiful vocals. First single Comeback Kid embraces the best of both the band's strengths - charging riffs with a big chorus that drop away into restrained stops before firing up again. I think it's the first great single of 2012 and is a rock-pop bubblegum fist to the face.

While there is more mellow on the album, it is still dominated by a brutish sensibility. Crush has Krauss reprising her demented cheerleader shouts from the first album and comes off like a demonic Toni Basil. Demons is built on a riff derived from a 80's metalhead's wet dream and sounds like a wrecking ball destroying an orphanage brick by brick - if my 14 year old self had heard this he'd probably have said it sounded pretty rad. Less successful to my ears is the winding Never Say Die which meanders meaninglessly but the final track D. O. A. is a tricked out slow burn which is a fitting closer to the record.

The album is powered by Derek Miller's Jackson + Marshall stack combo attack but as I've mentioned, there is more light and shade here with greater embrace of melody. I'm confident this record will have more staying power than Treats and I think there may be some sonic depths to it I'm yet to hear (I'm waiting for my vinyl pre-order to arrive but have been listening online to it here). I think Mark Lanegan's record is by far the best new album of the year but Sleigh Bells easily comes second.

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Sleigh Bells - Comeback Kid review

Comeback Kid by Sleigh Bells
I know that this has been out for a while but I felt compelled to write about it because I've been listening to it compulsively since its release. While I loved their first album Treats, it felt like an album with a shelf life and after the giddy rush of its sound wore off, I found myself listening to it less and less. Don't get me wrong, girly vocals mashed with gnarly guitars and heavy drums was a quick way to my heart but the songs seemed half formed in some ways. By this I mean their appeal was more in the sound rather than in the songwriting itself. I still love those songs but they're not strong enough to lift the band far beyond novelty status in my mind. However, that's all changed with this single.

Comeback Kid feels like an excellent evolution from Treats because they haven't strayed too far from the sound that makes them so singular but with much stronger songwriting. Sure, they've toned down the sonic distorted crunch a little and focussed on the pop a bit more but this song is instantly memorable and trust me, gets stuck in your head for hours in a time. By pushing Alexis Krauss's vocals to the front of the mix and refining the sonic clash into a shiny, sexy barrage, Sleigh Bells have revealed themselves for what they are - a fucking great pop band and for that I salute them. Definitely the best single of the year so far.

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Tell them what time it is!

I was recently having a conversation with a friend of mine who was complaining about the reissue of Fear of a Black Planet on vinyl. His exact words were “I can’t believe they released it as a single record again.” He’s right. A vinyl record fits about 20 minutes per side but any album longer than that requires the music to be compressed making it sound tinny and pinched. Black Planet, at just over an hour, has never really been that enjoyable to listen to on LP. Other notabvle offenders from the 80's was the original pressing of The Joshua Tree which was fifty minutes long.

When I was a kid, tapes and records had about eight songs on them and I didn’t think about it twice. The recent release of Radiohead’s King of Limbs was met with the derision because it was too short (instead of it being lame) but in 1987, I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid at a thirty-three minute record (coincidentally, Sleigh Bells debut album clocks in at thirty-two minutes and I don’t feel bad about that at all). I always think of that Bob Mould self titled record (1995) where the final minute and a half of the record is the sound of a needle bumping until someone takes it off. That additional time takes the record to thirty-nine minutes which is the ideal time for a vinyl record (I’ve never found that record on vinyl so if someone can hook me up, much appreciated). I guess Bob was making a statement about cds and vinyl or maybe he just thought it sounded cool.

I guess my questions is this: have we been conditioned to expect too much music and have artists been robbed of making a concise statement? This was brought home to me when I read an interview with Kate Bush on Pitchfork where she says:

Pitchfork: The Red Shoes came out in 1993, the heyday of the compact disc. Were you recording specifically for that format?

KB: Yeah, that's absolutely right. It probably was my first album that was specifically a CD as opposed to vinyl. Red Shoes was a bit long-- which was also a part of this whole problem with the change from vinyl to CD. I think that put a lot of strain on artists, actually. With CDs, you suddenly didn't want to let people down so you tried to give them as much as possible for their money. [laughs]

When you love an album it’s natural to desire more and more music but I’m not sure that necessarily makes it better. You see it with a number of re-issues that feature songs from the recording sessions that were originally left off the record. Most of the time, those bonus tracks at the end of the album add nothing and are just annoying because the natural conclusion to the album is ruined.

So what’s better, an album featuring lot’s of music but having poorer quality control or an album that is short but near perfect (although I am yet to find a perfect album)? I know a lot of albums that could be tightened up but is that to their detriment as well? With digital, the length of an album is limitless really but is more music a good thing? I don’t know the answers but I wish when they re-released vinyl records they would make them doubles if it goes over 45 minutes… Just sayin'...

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