AMNESTY FORTNIGHT 2K12 CONTINUES with a song that is not “Comeback Kid” or “End of the Line” because really there’s only so much we folks can do for you…
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W.B. Swygart: This wasn’t supposed to happen – a band whose idols seem to be those Hot Wheels sets where the car flies off the ramp and into your dad’s leg makes a second album, and it’s an improvement on its debut. Reign of Terror succeeds by taking Treats’ cars-go-boom approach and making it both smashier and nastier, and “Demons” is the point where the smile starts going fully Carrie Mathison. A swirly in bleach; Alexis Krauss inflicts high-school voodoo as the Bells’ primary-coloured elements crash into each other. And everything starts burning. They’re the 21st-century Crazy World of Arthur Brown. In a good way.
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David Moore: On the last Sleigh Bells album these two were too big for their britches, trying to play a stadium with the crappy equipment they lugged around in their van. It had its charm, but this time they bring the stadium inside — no more hiding behind in-the-red mixing gimmickry or buried vocals. It works, and “Demons” slays. Partly it’s because the relative clarity — and relative modesty — of the whole project this time out compels you to put up your devil horns without needing to command it (show, don’t tell!) Partly it’s just that the surrounding album is so sad this time out (death as breakup rather than vice versa) that this feels like a needed outlet from the quieter and prettier moments hiding in plain sight.
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Katherine St Asaph: The plot is simple: some dude burned down an orphanage and he’s going to pay for it, at the hands of DEMONS! RIFFAGE! THE ANGRIEST CAST OF ANNIE! The music’s no more complex: sugar-coated bludgeons stacked six by six by six, carnage and aftermath. By 2012 you’re well aware of whether you like this or not; it’s roughly correlated with your tolerance of Lolita Storm, or whether you ever wished A Little Princess ended in a brawl instead.
[8]
Kat Stevens: Sleigh Bells are a great idea in theory: Alec Empire must have kicked himself when he realised that Atari Teenage Riot songs sound even better when sung by seventeen overdubbed psychopathic zombie cheerleaders. Unfortunately for Sleigh Bells I am massively shallow and grumpy when it comes to Damn Hipsters On The 243 Bus. When I finally saw what Sleigh Bells looked like and realised they weren’t going to do backflips or eat my brains, their powerful riffs shrunk down to an unlistenable empty shell of their former selves: weak and tinny, with all the oomph of a Holiday Inn hairdryer. They’re really trying hard to win me back with “Demons” — I love the lurching Black Sabbath intro and snapping vocals (and er, Fear Factory rattle-drumming!). But it’s too late for me. I can’t shake the image of a coked-up 24-year-old girl in a Wookie-fur coat, Victorian pinafore and leopard-print leggings sat in front of me on the bus, braying loudly about her latest Launch in ‘The Wick’ Oh Yes Dahling Of Course You Can Bring Tabitha Along. I’m sure Sleigh Bells Lass isn’t like that at all, it’s completely in the ear of this prejudiced beholder, who has to deal with a different kind of zombie every day.
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Alfred Soto: As limited and minor as the Jesus and Mary Chain, but just as essential. This is the sound of arena-indie, and in 2012, to a generation that rightly isn’t nauseated by rawk gestures after growing up with boomer-rock, Sleigh Bells fill a niche whose contours require little besides power chords and a female singer. But some of us remember Pat Benatar, and Alexis Krauss + drum machine + power chords doesn’t cut it.
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Jer Fairall: Former one-trick ponies learn a second trick: covering imaginary Joan Jett songs, though Joan’s would have had about 60% more attitude and about 40% less willful self-obfuscation.
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Andy Hutchins: At some point, there are diminishing returns on understanding space and loud-soft-loud dynamics with big ol’ guitar-and-drum stuff. That must be compensated for with vocals and songwriting, and burying Alexis Krauss’ striking, piercing vocals (on first listen, I doubt anyone but a practiced Sleigh Bells listener discerns much more than “take it down” or “six by six by six”) underneath the din created by using rawk as a sledgehammer is a good sign: At least Sleigh Bells get that it’s the songwriting that is the weak spot here.
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Ian Mathers: Does the intro to this feel like a more distorted Ratatat to anyone else? And not good Ratatat — I mean the middling tracks, where the riffs feel too schematic to really connect. As always with Sleigh Bells (except for “Rill Rill,” which doesn’t count because Funkadelic) the music sounds just slightly better in concept than in execution, but Alexis Krauss is an invaluable presence. Once she starts singing, those riffs snap into shape as vital support and the generally darker, more driving material here works a hell of a lot better than “Infinity Guitars” did. But this just feels like less of a song than “Comeback Kid” (which was great).
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Brad Shoup: I’m all for the switch to appropriating metal instead of hip-hop. Sideline action from Sabbath U, a dominating eight-in-the-box front digging running back graves.
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Iain Mew: Commanding “You will answer to no one else but me” over crushing noise over sweetly sung “take him down” is one amazing pile-up. A shame that there isn’t quite enough new or interesting happening before that to make it worth sticking around that long.
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Zach Lyon: I’m not sure they were ever supposed to make a second record. Sleigh Bells had power because they were revelatory, surprising. I remember the exact moment I first heard “Crown in the Ground” and how wide my eyes opened, given that all I had heard prior was the very tame “Rill Rill” demo (“Ring Ring” at the time). On “Demons” they try to recapture the power but only succeed in making the sound cleaner, silver, more metallic (not metal-ic). Not that they were ever all that dirty in the first place, but it’s enough of a change to make the new record sound like it’s stuck in Treats‘ uncanny valley.
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