Monday 20 February 2012

The 2kDozen 500: #72 - Sleigh Bells, "Reign of Terror"

Suzy Quattro is alive and well! Yes; and in other news, Sleigh Bells have a new album out.

A bedroom impersonation of thrash metal, with the double kick bass drum sounds and lurching gristly guitar thump. Reminds me of Andrew WK and it reminds me of Shampoo. Quite sure neither of those are good things. But instead of a pallid, bum-fluff moustache longhair growling about Satan in his bedroom, we have Alexis Krauss trilling in sugarplum tones.

It opens with some cod stadium hair metal, string-bending nonsense. Then "Born To Lose" has a hint of Lush about it. The swoonsome romantic figure of the loser. "Leader of the Pack"' lays the rock chick shtick down pretty thick. "End of the Line" is breathy and frothy, wanting to let the other half down firmly but on gossamer noises.


"Comeback Kid" was the lead single and distills the shiny, unloud, clipped sound of the album into one strangely push-button business. I liked it when I first heard it as a teaser for the album. Now it just sounds like pop in its emptiest sense, it isn't reaching out for anything. Is this the pretty woman/husky bloke pushing buttons combo syndrome that I've come to dread? Crystal Castles and Niki & The Dove and that.

"You Lost Us" sounds like a tribute to "teenage metalheads in your denim vests" boasting the kind of echo chamber guitar solo that Bill & Ted would go off into the wastes of time to rehearse till they got it just polished enough. Meh.

The last two tracks "Never Say Die" and "D.O.A." move away from the template and are more interesting. The cock rock guitar grinding more along with the rest of the music. Less tiresome pounding on the irony gland. I'd have liked that album a lot more. I thought I'd liked "Treats".

Rating: Turned Up To Six out of Eleven

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