Released 09 August 2010, Columbia/Mom Pop Records



Sleigh Bells' debut album finally drops alongside a raft of good-to-gushing reviews and Loud and Quiet cover shoots.  At first, a few tunes aside, it really didn’t resonate and the hype seemed ill-placed.  However given that most available of components-time- it wormed its way in and it revealed itself to have a sweet centre underneath the never ending earsplitter synths and strings.


Opening song 'Tell Em' wastes no time in telling us exactly what Sleigh Bells are all about.  Reverberating keys and peow-peow sounds flood the room, unsettling the ear and bringing to mind the tinny squeal of a Lazer Quest gun.  By itself it wouldn’t be much, quite possibly annoying, but the sweeter-than-pie vocals of Alexis Krauss complete the Sleigh Bells equation and instead we are treated to a slice of 21st century electro scrunch-pop.


This continues through ‘Kids’ and ‘Riot Rhythm,’ before ‘Infinity Guitars’, which features a guitar riff so jagged it could take the head off a china doll.  Said riff is played by Derek Miller, and it is he that is responsible for the crashing guitars and synths that form the grounding for Krauss’s voice to float over.  Saying that, don’t think its all sweetness in light with this lady- on ‘Shout As’ she lets fly with a tirade of unintelligible lyrics that you will have better ears than I to understand.


It will however be the albums more sedate moments that Treats, whether Sleigh Bells like it or not, will be most remembered for.  The mid-album triumvirate of ‘Run The Heart', ‘Rachel’ and ‘Rill Rill’ change the tone entirely and display the band are very much descendants of a rich line of mainstream-tickling Brooklyn electronic peddlers.  ‘Run The Heart’ has one of the years cutest/cheekiest lyrics: ‘I wanna know what’s good for you / You wanna know what’s good for me.’ ‘Rachel’ isn’t far off a hard house remix of an Usher tune-huge, speaker-shuddering bass cradles Krauss’s melancholic imploring of ‘Rachel, please don't go to the beach. Don't go.’ 


Then there is ‘Rill Rill’ which ,if they are to enter further into the public consciousness, will be the song to take them there- it’s their ‘O.N.E’ , their ‘Kids.’  Driven by a loping beat and handclaps it’s a contender for pop tune of the year- it feels a bit rubbish to describe a song as fluffy, but somehow it feels right here so I'm bloody going to do it. It's fluffy sounding.   With lyrics like ‘keep thinking about every straight face yes/ wonder what your boyfriend thinks about your braces’ it also has potential to bore its way into Radio 1-playing hearts everywhere, though it might take a while for the unitiated to stop calling it that 'ring ring song.'  Tellingly, the label are holding it back and releasing ‘Tell Em’ first from the album. It surely won’t be long before ‘Rill Rill’ gets its own moment in the spotlight though.


Treats will not disappoint those who like their music loud, brash but still with a toe in the pool of accessibility. It's not perfect by any stretch and the never-ending slash and scuzz of Derek Miller’s instrumentation can be a bit laborious at times, but there's a lot of heart in this record and it could prove itself as a 2010 sleeper hit. Deserve it, it will. 
 



7/10

Posted In Album Reviews, Aug 10 2010. Words - David