Sleigh Bells – Treats

by Brian Riewer on May 24th, 2010

Sleigh Bells – Treats
May 22nd, 2010
N.E.E.T. Recordings
Score: 7.5

Why is fun such a hard thing to come by in the current indie music climate? Being a member of the general bohemian/hipster/whatever culture, I can certainly vouch for myself and the rest of its constituents that the only real goal of any social activities done are for the sake of having a good time. So why is it that there’s hardly any reflection of that in our music? And no, don’t give me the typical too-cool-for-school party soundtrack staples — your LCD Soundsystem, your Of Montreal, your Vampire Weekend, etc. — who may be entertaining, but only in a post-ironic, exclusive, and self-aggrandizing manner. Their fun is derived from being already in the know, and then only when its listener cares to assert that said music is fun. I ask because upon hearing a record like Treats, it’s hard to imagine why more music like this isn’t being made.

Of course, if you’ve already listened to this record, you know that defining exactly what “music like this” is isn’t the easiest job in the world. Out of about 20 available categories for this post, I chose Electronica, Hip Hop, and Rock, which is about as accurate as I think I could be but it still doesn’t quite do Sleigh Bells’ sound justice. Though the love child of three distinctly different musical phyla, Treats never feels as if we are witnessing the conglomeration of the disparate elements that make it up. No, their sound is straightforward to the point of being singular and treats it as though it were the primordial soup from which other styles would eventually spring and not as the result of generations of evolution that it is. It’s remarkable how casually Alexis Krauss can rap over interlocking surging synth lines and hair metal guitar riffs, and more remarkable still how casually this seeming cacophony of opposing forces can comes across.

Nowhere is this more apparent than on the third single and lead track ‘Tell ‘Em’. Laser-gun-mimicking electronics and ridiculous soaring guitar segments that sound like they were stolen from Eddie Van Halen live harmoniously with fat hip hop beats and Krauss’ meek, almost childish flow, engaging almost too naturally together when you consider the component parts. We get another strong taste of this on ‘Riot Rhythm’ and ‘Infinity Guitars’, both of which feature handclaps and booming kick drums, ferocious shredding, and Krauss serving up a whole lot of attitude, and which give us a glimpse into just what makes Sleigh Bells a special band.

Sure, the bit about simultaneously branching into genres that don’t mix well is nice, but what truly makes them transient is their complete lack of pretense. It’s well-known (or at least well-alleged) that indie music has its fair share of posturing, and mainstream music, at the very least, pushes that which will accumulate the most money. But Sleigh Bells, as far as I can tell, are devoid of that. I mean, when you’re a collaboration between a former elementary school teacher and the ex-guitarist of hardcore band Poison The Well, how can you be pretentious? These two appear to only be making music for the sake of their own artistic ends, and ‘Crown On The Ground’, ‘Run The Heart’, and ‘A/B Machines’, tracks that are conceived and written with chaste aspirations and then slathered with instrumentation that would be over the top for even the filthiest clubs, speak to this absence of affectation. Don’t get me wrong: having intentions with music that go beyond the immediate is not necessary a bad thing. But it is also refreshing to hear music that is bereft of them.

The one negative I keep coming back to, though, is something that doesn’t really have anything to do with the album, at least the album as it stands alone as its own musical statement. As I’m sure a few of you know, Sleigh Bells leaked a series of demos in the past year that built up the buzz going into Treats, the majority of which ended up on the album and the majority of which were relatively unedited from their original version for the album. The exceptions, ‘Ring Ring’ and ‘Beach Girls’ which appear on Treats as ‘Rill Rill’ and ‘Kids’, respectively, were my two favorite of the demos and the two they happened to fuck up horribly in transit. Whereas ‘Beach Girls’ was a raunchy, obnoxious garbage fest in the best way possible, ‘Kids’ neuters it, removing that cutting synth line that starts the song, the airheaded twentysomething’s female spoken word in the middle, and the uncomfortably erotic moaning that closes it and replaces it with a boring bit-crushed electric guitar part and children’s vocals. ‘Rill Rill’, meanwhile, takes the simple, small acoustic guitar and big beat of the original and blows it out into something bloated and empty that lacks the attitude and fun of ‘Ring Ring’. Why they replaced these songs with clearly inferior redubs, especially in light of how outrageous and over the top they were willing to go on tracks like ‘Straight A’s’ and ‘Treats’, is beyond me.

Overall, though, there aren’t a lot of negative things one can say about Treats. Sleigh Bells clearly set out to make an exaggerated, extravagant record that was long on entertainment value and short on perfunctory self-awareness, and accomplished just that. How their sound will progress from this album on still remains to be seen, but there is one thing I can say for certain: if you don’t have Treats bumping at the next party you host, you’ve fucked up. Horribly.

Brian Riewer

Sleigh Bells | Myspace