Sleigh Bells - not even a guilty pleasure

I claim to be a young man who has eclectic tastes. I enjoy highbrow, but there's the occasional lowbrow indulgence that can't be surpassed (sigh...I have been known to catch an episode of Jersey Shore here and there).

Okay, now everyone will close this window and never read this blog again. I get it.

When it comes to music, I can't get enough of Fleet Foxes, Mumford and Sons, Gershwin, "Claire de Lune" by Debussy, Shostakovich Symphonies, Atmosphere, Guster, MGMT.

Now I've got another band that completely obliterates my listening tastes into another level of eclecticism:

Sleigh Bells.

There's a kind of cheer/sing/speak throughline in the album--hence the cheerleaders on the cover.

I'd never thought in a million years I would dig this sound.

It's noise--noise-rock. When you get a chance, you have to listen to this as loud as possible. I can work out to this music, I can drive my car to this music, I can write to this music. I got ready for Picasso at the Lapin Agile with this music. It's so fresh, chaotic, and unlike anything I'd ever heard before. It defies convention and I can't get it out of my head.

I know I'm about three months past the hype. But the Observer in London just reviewed it (just released across the sea). So I thought I'd join in the fun/insanity.


From the Pitchfork review:

There's spirit to this music, and the sonic assault is celebratory, asking only that you come along with it and join in. All of which, for me, anyway, makes the hype melt away. And if it's true that records this intense and exhilarating don't always sustain themselves over the long haul, that's not a worry either. The visceral thrill of Treats may not last forever, but neither does life; right now, this feels like living it.

And then there's Paste Magazine:

Treats, the debut effort from noise-rock newcomers Sleigh Bells, is the logical conclusion of the loudness war; it manages to challenge basic assumptions of how music can (and should) sound. You either buy the Brookyln duo’s central conceit or you don’t: bombastic synth-rock for bombast’s sake, with mixing cranked so high your speakers sound like they’re about to combust. It’s a preposterous juxtposition—Alexis Krauss’ way-past-sweet vocals as the sugary glaze on Derek Miller’s gritty and serrated riffing and beats—until the soaring power chords of opener and single “Tell ‘Em” kick off the album with a thunderclap, and you barrel through a 32-minute sonic rollercoaster that’s totally, gloriously, devoid of subtlety and restraint.

This could be a fleeting experiment in musical tastes, but I don't care. It doesn't concern me that I may absolutely hate this noise a year from now (heck, even a month from now). There's something vital in the sound that has grabbed me by the collar and shakes me up.

I just wanted to share. Listen at your own risk.

Maybe give it a couple chances; I sampled on MySpace and just couldn't figure it out. I didn't understand the hype. Then I heard it blasting at Urban Outfitters a couple weeks later and recognized it instantly. That's when I knew there was something in the works. Now I have the album.