Named after a seasonal instrument and boasting more oomph than a caroling rock opera, Sleigh Bells dig away at suffocating genres to deliver an album worth committing to. Yet live, the ferocious duo see-saw between a head spinning set (demanding your vocal interaction to sing the lead guitar while strumming in the air) to the docile focus on the vocalist sashaying awkwardly on stage. After their oscillating Lexington Show, we set SUPERSWEET’s Gavin Williams to deliver a “profile” on the US duo and prove why we should sacrifice a kitty-cat to hear them. Yet he unintentionally referenced so many bloody videos (and f.y.i. the band haven’t created any music videos as of yet); we indulged him.
SOUND LIKE...
As the rubbish coalition of two distinctively false men leading our country at the moment has proven, throwing together two very different individual parts doesn’t always lead to great results. However, as the time honored phrase will have us believe, opposites attract and sometimes, just sometimes, creating something that is so jaw dropping, pant wetting and intoxicating that you wonder why the hell it wasn’t tried before. That’s the feeling you get with Sleigh Bells: the result of cross breeding a little bit of Sugababes and Ministry. Cue the visual aids:
‘The Land Of Rape And Honey’
‘Round Round’
It’s the sound of a feisty but sugar coated pop starlet at loggerheads with a hardcore kid. Quite literally. The big, brash beats provide the canvas for the distorted guitars to stutter loudly across whilst Krauss provides some of the most seductive, tantalising and exhilarating vocals in recent memory.
THE CHILD-STAR SINGER
TV Commercial
Alexis Krauss, as is now fast becoming the legend, was in a Nickelodeon TV commercial as a child and then in a presumably fairly unsuccessful girl band, RubyBlue.
THE HARDCORE GUITARIST
Guitarist and songwriter, Derek Miller, on the other hand, come from the opposite direction leaving his day job in Florida hardcore band, Poison The Well (remember them?), to pursue this more electro of projects.
LIVE
Live, don’t expect the minimal approach by the duo to affect the proceedings. Although sometimes just singing over a backing track, Krauss’ passion is consistently captivating. Meanwhile, the hip-hop styled beats and mountain of noise coming from Miller’s guitar will leave you deaf and a little confused for days. It’s exhausting, a shock to the system at times, but ultimately the most fun you could hope for at a gig.
THE FAN VIDEOS
Sleigh Bells really shouldn’t work. But the fact that they do so well makes the mind boggle as to why such a simple but brilliantly executed concept and style hasn’t been tried before. In the wrong hands, the type of music Sleigh Bells create could be brash, dumb and repetitive. Miller and Krauss, though, are very much the right hands and are instead, exhilarating, vitallic and endlessly fun.
Words: Gavin Williams and Gemma Dempster
Photograhy: Jason Williamson