Review: Sleigh Bells' Reign of Terror

Sleigh Bells was one of those bands that instantly clicked with me the first time I heard them.  The concept of making music so catchy and, at times, fun out of components that were so loud and abrasive was something that shouldn't have worked as well as it did.  Yet, Treats succeeded and it succeeded wildly.  Even in hindsight, I find very few flaws with the album.

And so comes the popular sophomore album question:  What now?


For a very brief moment, I thought the answer to that question was:  Do the same thing all over again.  It might be relatively easy to hear Derek Miller's rambunctious guitar work, the heavy beats and Alexis Krauss's breathy vocals at work and assume that Sleigh Bells have just made the same album twice.  If there's one thing this album is not, though, it's Treats 2.0.

If there's one key thing that's changed between their first and second albums, its the songcraft.  Treats made you want to turn the stereo up just to hear the crunchy loudness of the songs.  Reign of Terror wants you to turn it up to fully realize just how tight the songwriting and composition is.  Much has been said about this album being a reaction by Derek Miller to drama in his personal life, and you can feel the emotion and darkness throughout the album.  Yet at no point does it ever become too over-the-top or detrimental to the listening experience.

In fact, Miller and Krauss tap into some of these dark themes and somehow channel it into some of their brightest and most poppy moments.  "Comeback Kid" is vibrant and almost danceable, while "Crush" re-imagines the Go Team as a cheerleading squad on the side of a roller derby. 

"Born to Lose," the first single from the album, is one of the best songs here.  Its fatalist themes weave in and out of guitar bursts and chugging drum machines that almost blend into the background seamlessly.  For as intense of a song as this is, the biggest surprise comes at the end when the song comes to a long droning finale, spending the last minute cooling down.  From start to finish, this is one of the most impressive Sleigh Bells songs yet.

"Road to Hell" is definitely be a favorite of mine on the album.  It seems to tap into the same nerves that Treats' "Rill Rill" did, in that its a really charming pop song disguised as something that should be a little more abrasive.  The guitars seem to just simmer here, adding to the background more than anything else, allowing for one of the rare moments on the album in which Krauss's actual vocals are front and center instead of meshing with the music.

Perhaps, though, its "Demons" that comes out on top of an album with so many killer songs.  "Demons" is probably the song most similar to the sound of Treats, brash and chaotic, yet at the same time it also seems to benefit the most from the stronger arrangements and dark lyrics. 

Before hearing Reign of Terror, I wondered how Sleigh Bells would follow up Treats.  It seemed to me like they were going to go one of two ways:  Treats 2.0 or a new and completely unpredictable direction.  I'm quite happy that in the end it seems that the band took the opportunity to try the middle ground and to simply expand and improve on their already solid sound.

Make no mistake, Reign of Terror is just as energetic and bombastic as Treats was.  It's the details that ultimately make this a different album, though, and one that may ultimately end up being even more rewarding.