I'll be the first to admit that after the release of "Treats," Sleigh Bells' debut album from 2010, I was one of the many who immediately deified the noisy duo from Brooklyn, placing them atop my musical pantheon.
Guitarist Derek Miller and frontwoman Alexis Krauss manufactured an instant classic, defying genre standards with monolithic walls of sound that flooded speakers. Thick and deliberate hip−hop beats cracked satisfyingly; screeching guitars riffed dirty power chords up and down. Krauss — the goddess she was — managed to keep it all together with an intoxicating mix of cheerleader chanting and delicate cooing. The sound was raw and unnerving but incredibly focused — it was my undisputed pick for 2010's album of the year and has been a mainstay in my "Recently Played" playlist ever since.
"True Shred Guitar," the opening track from their newest output, "Reign of Terror," there's a confusing amalgam of sounds — something resembling a field recording of a DefLeppard concert in the worst possible way. A large crowd roars in a homogeneous rumble, and a woman who must be Krauss spews painfully clichemetal−concert banter: "New Orleans! What the f−−−'s up?" "I wanna see your f−−−ing hands in the air!"
In the background, Miller apathetically noodles on a distorted guitar. But it all builds slowly into something organized, and eventually the proper song begins — sans the crowd noise. Miller's guitar sounds like a high−school sophomore jamming to Judas Priest in his dad's music studio. A drum machine, too low in the mix, blasts a more derivative beat than anything on "Treats," and Krauss yells, "Push it! Push it!" with an alarming lack of authenticity. It's an unfortunate start to what turns out to be a fairly disappointing album.
Krauss seems to have spent the year and a half off accumulating an even larger amount of swag than what she flaunted on "Treats." That may sound appealing at first, but there's a fine line between endearing aggressiveness and flat−out cockiness. Hearing Krauss sing an unrelenting barrage of unoriginal lines ("I got a crush on you" and "Don't run away from me, baby," for example) forces one to yearn for 2010, when Krauss' lyrics were so genuinely weird and fun that she could spend an entire song singing only the line, "Got my A machines in the table/ got my B machines in the drawer," and be totally lovable for it.
Equally distressing is the lack of vocal variation she exhibits over the course of the record's eleven tracks. One of the things that made "Treats" so desirable was the volatility and variety in Krauss' delivery — shrieking or chanting at one moment, playfully chirruping at the next. On "Reign," she spends the majority of her time operating within the constraints of the coy taunt that was really only present on "Rill Rill" back in 2010. However tongue−in−cheek the bombast is intended to be, it comes off as kitschy and stale from oversaturation. "Reign's" best moments come when Krauss sheds this newfound role as a temptress and veritably lets loose — tracks like "Demons" and "Born to Lose" find Krauss yelling for the hell of it, reveling in and contributing to the noisy chaos Miller creates for her.
Miller's shift in production is certainly interesting, if not misguided. "Reign of Terror" is loud and undoubtedly more guitar driven than its predecessor. These guitars — however distorted — are surprisingly sterile and calculated throughout the album's 36 minutes. Eighties−style hair metal is a definite steppingstone for Miller here, and it's not wrong for him to find inspiration in a pre−established genre form.
The problem arises when he attempts to combine the style with inconsistently complex beats from his drum machine and Krauss' overbearingly monotonous vocals. At some points he gets the formula right — the mercilessly quick and fun beat collage on the aforementioned "Born to Lose," for example — but at others it goes terribly wrong, such as in the agonizingly simple and unvaried pound on "Road to Hell." The guitar doubling and soaring riffs are a guilty pleasure for sure, but the attempt at mixing and matching everything proves to be too difficult a task.
The "sophomore slump" is one of the most loaded notions in music. If a debut album from an artist is fresh in breadth and adored by fans and critics alike, there really isn't much that the artist can do to escape the demands for and comparisons to their debut work. Sleigh Bells should be praised for trying to escape this trend: They attempted to establish a new direction without deviating too far from their original path. Unfortunately, on "Reign of Terror," it's as though Krauss and Miller are too in their own heads about this fact, and they make more missteps than progressions.
