Sleigh Bells - Reign of Terror

http://pitchfork.com/news/45102-new-sleigh-bells-comeback-kid/

Me and and Alexis made eye-contact so many times I'm kinda confused as to why I'm on ilxor right now and not sleeping in her tour bus. It sorta helps that I was the tallest person in a roomful of excessively exuberant 16 year olds.

― brodieopolari.... oh fuck it (kelpolaris), Sunday, 5 June 2011 12:50 (7 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Now we're talking! This is much better than the other one.

love the drum machine freakouts when the verse comes back, that's my favorite part. reminds me of 80s indie rockers' "wow, drum machines!" experiments ("into the groove(y)", big stick). sadism level is much reduced, even relative to "born to loose". have to turn it way up to feel the pain.

overall = len sustaining a heavy beating. or maybe the breeders?

btw if u missed it for whatever reason, there's another track out there too:

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/12895-born-to-lose/

plus black bananas as touring partners!

Yeah, so with 24 hours hindsight, neither of these new songs is as immediately appealing as their best from the last few years ("Crown On the Ground", "Rill Rill", "Infinity Guitars", etc).

a band like this should never 'develop'. did ac/dc and the ramones teach us nothing

fuck the haters, this album is gonna pwn

This album is fucking awful. The production sounds like a Guitar Hero demo level.

Saw SB last year, and Alexis was thrashing around and hit her head on the guitar, resulting in LOTs of blood. She got a towel and held it up to her head and they did 3 more songs while it just got soaked with blood. What a badass!

aw yeah

this is REALLY good isn't it?

The production sounds like a Guitar Hero demo level.

OTM. I do not get this band at all.

"Crown on the Ground" is the only thing by them I can even remotely fuck w/. They're awful.

I tend to think their singles are their worst songs; my favorite by them by a large margin is "Run The Heart"

Looking frwd to this, 'Treats' is great.

Gonna be touring arenas opening for Red Hot Chili Peppers

RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS
w/ Sleigh Bells
@ Verizon Center • Washington, D.C.
May 10

Sort of liked their previous stuff, but "Comeback Kid" is great - very Lush-like (and even a little Ride), but more rocking, less gazing.

--> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/arts/music/the-indie-band-sleigh-bells-new-album-reign-of-terror.html

this is amazing obv

so amazing:

Two minutes later there was Alexis Krauss, with ripped jeans and a distinct saunter. She raised her arms as she reached the microphone, the black-haired queen of this stage. White lights exploded behind her, over a wall of Marshall stacks and an unfurled American flag.

In a breath she ripped into “True Shred Guitar,” the first track on a new album written with her band mate, Derek Miller. The crowd surged, pleased. Sleigh Bells were on tour again.

the santorum surged, pleased

Given this a couple whirls - it's decent, with a couple outstanding tracks. I like their new shift. It's just not as compelling as their debut, tho - some of the tracks accentuate the fact that their songs are really singular melodies (or worse, "gimmicks") expanded into the 3 minute range: i.e., they're just not very interesting. I guess it's more that they're not really breaking barriers like they had in Treats - this album seems more of a refinement of what they had going previously, but not so aggro.

But as a shoegaze fan, Krauss is really killing it on submerging herself beneath Miller's riffs and it really makes me look forward to their next album if they choose to expand a little more on this.

Not sure if it's a plus that the CD is more welcome in my car than Treats was - I was a tad embarrassed to have the windows rolled down with that previous one.

8.2 but no BNM this band's not cool anymore, dudes

http://open.spotify.com/album/1QJsT9ZXcBp9fWpx4cAMIz

boom

haha these guys just cater directly to my id

although I am slightly bummed that there isn't anything so far as noisy aggro freakout as "Run The Heart", which is pretty much everything I love about Sleigh Bells in one song

Realllllly do not get this band :(

it is music to tear your face off to

although they need more "Comeback Kid" type songs on this album and fewer "Road To Hell" nods to prettiness

the backlash begins (or continues according to some):

Novelty-rock acts rarely catch a second wave of hype, which means Sleigh Bells are officially eating into our precious time on this Earth. The Brooklyn duo’s sophomore album, “Reign of Terror,” out Tuesday, is as loud and insipid as a “Transformers” movie sequel.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/sleigh-bells-reign-of-terror-title-says-it-all-about-bad-rock-and-roll-album/2012/02/20/gIQAbIq9PR_story.html

haha the problem is that the album ISN'T LOUD ENOUGH, not that it's too loud!

although "Never Say Die" is pretty cool

extremely disappointed in chris richards!

the first q and not u record is not exactly worlds away from sleigh bells dude

i dont think they'll probably top treats, any more than andrew wk will top i get wet. but i bet i wind up listening to this more often than anything awk has released since 2002 (and i like some of 'em plenty).

The Wolf is hit or miss, but I absolutely love Close Calls with Brick Walls.

^ yes

Just downloaded off Spotify and listened to the first few songs. so far so good, especially "Born To Lose"

this is the longest 30-minute album i've ever listened to

Yeah, as someone who adored Treats and the original 2HELLWU tracks, this is not clicking with me. First listen etc. so maybe it will grow, but I can't envision myself dancing to this, and the kinetic energy was as much a part of their appeal for me as the riffs or red-zoning.

Today this sounds a lot better, I think because I'm not listening to every song waiting for another "Run The Heart"

"Road to Hell" is kind of a drag tho

road to hell
Road To Hell
road to hell?
road. to. hell

this band was on snl. i got really excited when i realized they weren't whatever danger mouse + the guy from the shins call themselves (pretty sure it was sleigh bells?), but then they started and my excitement dwindled quickly.

their recordings are quite a bit better than their snl show would've suggested (snl's notoriously shitty mixing didn't help at all)...but i still don't know if this is my kind of thing.

broken bells

I just bought this today and haven't heard the whole thing yet. It may be good. But one area where they definitely shit the bed is the crucial first few seconds.

Treats had one of great openings of any record in years, the first bit of Tell 'Em. How do they follow it up? A minute of fake crowd noise and a grade Z Paul Stanley impersonation? Barf out!

Ha I had them confused with the danger mouse thing too, never heard them but wow they sucked total balls on snl, one dude is from q and not u?? Crazy

lol no the dude who wrote the neg review in the washington post was in q and not u

the sleigh bells dude was in poison the well

sonic terrorists and not in a awesome whitehouse, prurient kinda way. total skip.

Lol so my "song vaguely unlike the rest of the album that makes me love the whole thing" this time is "Never Say Die"

sonic terrorists and not in a awesome whitehouse, prurient kinda way. total skip.

Hah, I thought they were pretty good on SNL. Certainly Sexi Lexi did a great job.

part of the problem is that a big "thing" about their music is that the vocals are buried in guitars, which makes for a great album experience but not necessarily a great live television experience

I'm liking this record, but that opening track was a big mistake.

Hah, I thought they were pretty good on SNL. Certainly Sexi Lexi did a great job.

Wow, I had the complete opposite reaction.

i really don't want "ironic" retro 80s jackson/charvel strat style guitars w/floyd rose to become a "thing"

ok just started this....so hipsters with fake crowd noise imitating a Ratt rehearsal?

skip the first track, it's terrible

oh wait now it's edgy and has drum machines and shit

goddang this is trebly

so like...um...chillwave meets atom and his package by way of def leppard hysteria or something?

youch this is just brutal sounding, like this might be the worst sounding record i've ever heard

unless they are going for like a purposeful whitehouse/nurse with wound thing except making it pop so they can trick ppl into listening to it.

like this might be the worst sounding record i've ever heard

listen to the first one

haha listening to the first one, this sounds like alec empire producing a poison records with a 10 yr old macbook and toy instruments

god this is like the black eyed peas meets dudes that play guitar solos at Guitar Center

hahaha @ these

i feel like i have tinnitus already

god i bet they mastered this with a Line 6 Pod

haha have you gotten to "Run The Heart" yet?

I listened to this band, they are for young people?

i think so!

this is just fucking awful i had to quit

not listening to Astrud Gilberto, feels like my ears are taking a nice warm bath

my favorite genres:

1. alec empire producing a poison records with a 10 yr old macbook and toy instruments
2. chillwave meets atom and his package by way of def leppard hysteria
3. hipsters with fake crowd noise imitating a Ratt rehearsal

top guilty pleasure:

- black eyed peas meets dudes that play guitar solos at Guitar Center

well now i never have to listen to Sleigh Bells again, thankfully

I still haven't heard the album, but the SNL performance was like some nightmare of Jessie J leading the Cocteau Twins.

I just rewatched that SNL performance and I still think it's fine. Are you all smoking crack? At least it's bringing the LOLS. I haven't thought about Atom and His Package in forever.

There was nothing wrong other than maybe the mix, which you would probably want to change if you were putting it on an album. If you don't like the song or their sound then you just don't like it.

"End of the Line" is verging on terrible

SLEIGH BELLS - HERE COMES TREBLE

SLEIGH BELLS - YES IT'S SUPPOSED TO SOUND LIKE THAT

SLEIGH BELLS - I RIPPED THEIR CD AT 64KBPS AND IT SOUNDS EVEN BETTER

if the first record is anything to go on i think this band requires a subwoofer

The first album was and is amazing, but so far Reign of Terror seems like a pretty big let-down to me.

The only "zomg LOVE" songs on the second album are "Comeback Kid" and "Never Say Die". I also really like "Born to Lose" and "Demons". I really hate "End of the Line" and "Road to Hell". The rest I expect to grow on me.

"massive walls of paint-stripping candy NOIZE" was most of the appeal last time around, so the slightly gentler approach on the new stuff is a bit of a letdown. still, i haven't heard the new album yet (just "born to lose" and "comeback kid"), so maybe i'll be happily surprised.

But as a shoegaze fan, Krauss is really killing it on submerging herself beneath Miller's riffs and it really makes me look forward to their next album if they choose to expand a little more on this.

― NO NUTRITIONAL CONTENT (kelpolaris), Monday, February 20, 2012 10:36 AM (4 days ago) Bookmark

nooo, don't say it! eventual shoegazification seems inevitable, and i want no part of it

the submersion of her voice in a wall of guitars is the cornerstone of their sound...?

yeah, i mean i'm dreading the eventual turn to prettier, more expansive shoegaze sound beds for her voice to float over/under

It seems like this album suffers from the "awkward transitional album" syndrome, so do I hope that they are transitioning to something, whether it be pretty shoegaze or something else, because on this album it seems they're not really sure what they want to do.

a band like this should never 'develop'. did ac/dc and the ramones teach us nothing

― Critique of Pure Moods (goole), Tuesday, January 17, 2012 12:54 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It would have been fine with me if they'd just done Treats Pt. 2, but since they've gone down this road, I'm just being optimistic that it will lead somewhere interesting.

tbh I was hoping the album was going to be like Loveless at 156 BPM

This is an amazing album and much better than the first which I found conceptually interesting, but mostly unlistenable. The new one is much more obviously shoegazer and more pretty, if somewhat less daring.

There is a fantastic EP here lurking amongst some really terrible, terrible songs

that's interesting because other than the throwaway opening track this feels v. homogenous to me

it's mostly a tempo/meter thing; when they step outside of the midtempo guitar slog rut of "End of the Line" and "Road to Hell", the album is engaging and fun ("Born To Lose" succeeds because it's in 6/8; "Demons" and "Comeback Kid" are high energy and fun; "Never Say Die" is just gorgeous while maintaining the energy)

Agree that the opening track isn't very good. Maybe it was intended as a conceptual bridge to the last album, but the new one doesn't really need it.

finally heard this yesterday. kind of struck me as an Enya/Warren DeMartini mash up

I thought the opening track was funny, if not needed in the least. I actually like this album, surprisingly, since I hated the last one. Normally I don't mind intentionally bad recording (I love Times New Viking's early stuff!) but I don't think that really served them, but this remedies that problem nicely. I do wish there was, to quote the first track, a little more true shred guitar, though. I like the tracks that emphasize the disparity between her sweeter vocals and the emphatic riffs.

this band is so ass ppl seriously

give me your last.fm and i will judge you

i listened to the first album while walking in the snow tonight and def miss all the weird little things that they're sort of cleaned out of their sound--no surf guitar, 90s rave sounds, funkadelic samples, marching band beats anymore :(

but big beats, crunchy guitars, girly vox will always be a winning combo

loved the first one. gonna get around to spinning this one.

i saw their press kit the other day, in the "for fans of" section it just said "treble"

new tour is a thing, apparently? it was their tour last year that made me turnaround on the band (hated them previously, but denver gets so little in way of prominent acts i figured i could at least meet some ceut indie chixx) so i'm hoping the new sound translates to as great a stage presence/experience as the last one. hi-lite was feeling the bass resonate in my teeth.

I'm really liking "You Lost Me" this morning.

Here's Sleigh Bells low-use-value cover of Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable"

this band is so ass ppl seriously

― the wild eyed boy from soundcloud (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, February 29, 2012 4:05 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

give me your last.fm and i will judge you

― NO NUTRITIONAL CONTENT (kelpolaris), Wednesday, February 29, 2012 9:43 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol i don't really use last.fm anymore since spotify

but if only there was a way you could find documented evidence of my taste in music on the internet

-xpost-

Well that was inconsequential.

man low-use-value is right on

the english voice saying "what an absolute treat" at the end is some kind of punchline

I like this album, it reminds me of Andrew W.K. with a soft-voiced singer.

I went to another show. they played more material from treats than they did reign of terror, which was a serious disappointment to me - the songs that they actually chose off the latter album where shit ones like "true shred guitar" and bores like "leader of the pack" (badly badly badly wanted them to play "road to hell" and "you lost me").

Didn't like it as much as first time, altho Krauss specifically pointed at me b/c i kind of isolated myself atop a mini-staircase in order to gain the best vantage point and was about 3 heads taller than everyone else. altho altho she pointed at about 892398 other peoplethat night. alas, i will look elsewhere for my buxom banged beautistimo.

but holy shit, those shorts

it took 7 months but I no longer hate half of this album

still not a huge fan of "Born to Lose" tho

which apparently I used to like, lol

Going back and listening to this some more, it has emerged as one of my two or three favorite records of the year.

It has some of my favorite songs from the year on it, definitely.

This album has to be played VERY LOUD in order to fully appreciate its greatness. Track 1 is still a big mistake, but after that, it's the album of the year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr-ahiFDkts

That is really quite awful.

Awww they lost their weight. It's all breath and fuss, nothing you can get your teeth into. 3/10 see me after class.

Are you shitting me with those Casio handclaps?

I am a Sleigh Bells enthusiast, but this is not one of their better efforts. Ms. Krauss looks wonderful, though.

album suuuuucks :/

lol i hope that isn't true

the single sucks so I'm not surprised

The single sucked but the album ain't bad -- and I was not a fan of the first.

Really like this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZi7-1v4m-0

sorta just makes me want to hear "never leave you" by lumidee

I love this record.

it's okay

guess i'll give it another shot