Sleigh Bells: Treats

I dig the few songs from this band I've heard. They take an aesthetic I usually find reprehensible and lazy, and they employ it in service of the song. It's kind of powerful, really.

prediction: when the hype will end - this band will end with it.

the main problem imo is the flatness.

it's bike riding music/driving music! which isnt always great but it feels badass and makes you want to go faster

i am down w/ chillwave in gen. but it is not a subgenre to make **stars**

what do Sleigh Bells have to do with chillwave?

lol "ok"

crown on the ground is nice

Listening to their SXSW set right now, chuckling at the risks of depending so heavily on a laptop when their "software" crashes twice in a 20-minute set.

"Crown on the Ground" is actually the only song I'd even care to hear again.

To me, they're My Bloody Valentine if they wrote pop songs.

My Bloody Valentine wrote pop songs.

― Brad Nelson (BradNelson), Sunday, April 25, 2010 8:35 AM (Yesterday)

^ this.

haven't heard much of this band. i've seen more text than i've heard notes, and that's not usually a good sign. is there a song i should start with? i tried listening to some songs on youtube but they were all live an pretty awful.

"Ring Ring" is a great summer jam.

"Crown on the Ground" is good too.

"i've seen more text than i've heard notes, and that's not usually a good sign"

um

yeah i really didn't read that one over before i hit submit.

P4k has a stream of "Tell 'Em" and a link to Sleigh Bells's website w/ a 128 kbps mp3 of it:

http://pitchfork.com/news/38634-new-sleigh-bells-tell-em/

Saw this band in Denver last week. Awful. Terrible guitar tone and some sorority girl headbanging on stage.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cKnQZ8uHAw4/S9hiAdhLPmI/AAAAAAAAAmY/Qz6VHEZqN80/s400/tresats452ss.jpg

ring ring is an okay song struggling to do anything w. and awesome sample

ok "tell 'em" is awesome

I don't "get it" either. The MBV parallels are so far off. Is this one of those things that's catching on because it seems so novel? Are they likable for the same reason people think Andrew WK is likable? Fans, talk to me. I don't hate it, but it's like elevator music in the sense that it's so negligible to me.

if you told me that MIA was gonna make a rock song, this is what i would've pictured

Great production, poor melody

It's summery?...is the best way I can put it maybe? I still haven't really figured out what it's doing/why it's doing what it does, but there's little else at the moment that really makes me feel on top of the world. There's both a swagger and a sense of fun and power to it, and it's loud and angular without being anti-catchy. Often noise is used to place a barrier between listeners and material (or it feels that way at least?). The noise and the compression and the fuzz of Sleigh Bells is inviting and raucous.

I'm not necessarily going to argue that it's 'important' - I don't know that they're saying anything or doing anything particularly novel - but if A/B Machines or Infinity Guitars don't make you want to MOVE and bob your head (not headbanging, more like you would when listening to hip hop) and shake your ass, then I'm not sure if anything I write can quantify why they rock.

yeah it's gonna sound enormous in the car

Feels kinda strangely hollow to me, not in a good way. Something about it is very...1991, for lack of a better word, and I mean that in a neutral rather than in a good or bad sense.

Feels kinda strangely hollow to me, not in a good way.

no basslines, right? just kick drums, which is pretty hip-hop.

Could be part of it, but there's also something forced here that, again, I can't put my finger on. It's like it comes close to working but because it doesn't gets really irritating.

at least in the indie world, this record is gonna be huge

Alexis Krauss' former group RubyBlue - girl group pop music circa 2002. Can we mash this up with Crown on the Ground or something?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIvZ5LLFlXU

Despite the awful lyrics, I sort of like that more than Sleigh Bells in a sort of female fountains of wayne way

sort of.

Fans, talk to me. I don't hate it, but it's like elevator music in the sense that it's so negligible to me.

I don't want to talk to you.

This just seems like a logical extension from what Sick Mouthy has been talking about for ages...except in the wrong direction. I really hope this fetishization of digital distortion and ultra-compression doesn't really stick around. Its kinda the same thing with that Dom band...kinda. I think that once people realize this band sucks live, they will hopefully dwindle away.

That Ruby Blue song above puts their live show into perspective for me. I was wondering why she was so lame on stage.

I do like the heavy bass and noise elements to this band. And other than my problems with the vocals, I just wish there was more going on with the guitar. I kept waiting for the dude to do something more–I don't know, a solo, maybe just a fill of some kind? The best part of this band's live show is what comes out of the iPod they've hooked up to the PA.

I've always been really 'pro' this band, like most people, but was taken aback when Perpetua called them "bold" and suggested that other bands "leave their timidity behind in the 00s."

At first I chalked up my allergic reaction to the backhanded belittling of 'bands who aren't Sleigh Bells', but then I read this thread and can better put my reservations into words... To crush a recording like this is a beautiful sound, but it symbolizes one thing alone: expansionism. This beat bangs harder than yours, my amps are louder than yours... I can totally get behind it, this is one fantastic band, but "big" and "loud" don't necessarily mean "bold" to me. I want to hear dozens of records from Sleigh Bells but I hope this won't set a precedent for the next five years of pop music.

holy interlocking Death Stars

i don't think Sleigh Bells will set the precedent for anything, except for maybe a handful of younger bands who they might influence

i'm sure part of their boldness can be attributed to volume & "beat[s] bang[ing] harder than yours," but i think another part can be attributed to how singular this sounds. in the context of indie at least, something like "Tell 'Em" reminds me of last year's Dirty Projectors record, not because it sounds similar, but because what the hell else sounds like this today? not much, i think, at least in the indie world

i think a lot of the "boldness" argument can be attributed to both the volume and the bareness of the songs -- i'm not surprised that perpetua would say something like that considering how much disdain he has for the vivian girls -- there's a confidence in sleigh bells that can serve as a direct antithesis to lo-fi/reverby indie rock & chillwave if you feel like those bands/artists use production aesthetics to muffle underwritten songs

i'm not a fan of lo-fi/chillwave myself but i'm not sure i want to see sleigh bells setting trends either

i think you're mostly OTM, but i wouldn't mind a little more confidence in my indie

i mean, the "confidence" thing is really a slippery slope because it's really a borderline conspiracy theory -- there are tons of indie bands who aren't doing lo-fi/chillwave who don't sound like sleigh bells/don't produce their music like sleigh bells

it's weird tho--sleigh bells isn't this 100% kicking your ass thing--yeah the production is ridic but she still has a really delicate and girly voice. i think that's the contrast they're working with and a "sleigh bells vs chillwave" narrative makes less sense to me

uh except yall r deaf they *are* a chillwave band?

What is this chillwave of which you speak

ok plax, why are they a chillwave band

yeah i don't see that

neither does plaxico

classic sample+lo-fi laptop production "post Ariel Pink" indie. like i dunno how specific the def. of chillwave is that something that incorporates all the elements would be set up as in like opposition to the rest of it. I mean, i feel like this straight up sampling thing still has enough of a novelty factor attached to it in the contxt of Modern Indie that it functions pretty well as a classificatory signifier. also, shit sounds like an aggro washed out.

i feel like chillwave = music you fall asleep to, and sleigh bells is certainly not that

obv its the opposite end of the continuum from like Julian Lynch for eg but i mean

i mean u r deaf if sleigh bells is "chillwave" because they use samples and laptops?

i do think they are pretty lol in a "hey i can't find any dece rips of ur tracks" "no that is our sound" way

sayin they use samples in a lo-fi indie way, that is simple loop, semi-recognisable (the dreams of the passt) w. melody sung on top.

Played in Neighbours this week too!

I had been thinking this band had completely worn out its welcome with me but I've been listening to Treats today and it really is just that their albums have been getting worse as they've gone along.

yup

I feel like with every iterative release they seem to be saying "this didn't work so well on the previous album, let's take that and make it the cornerstone of the songwriting for the next one!"

first album felt really spontaneous, tons of ideas, seemed to exist with no expectations. second album tightened things up a bunch because they were getting big. third album reveals that the tightening up made them pretty boring.

The best thing about them was always their looseness. Felt like they made more SONGS and fewer tracks with each successive record which is obviously their prerogative but the visceral excitement wasn't just the noise and the redlining it was the beats and the dancier elements?

I mean I guess they were never dance properly or beats driven but onTreats the guitars weren't deployed as guitars but as rhythm and propulsion and a bunch of other stuff. After that they became more traditionally deployed? But it's been a while since I've listened to the newer stuff so I could be wrong.

Basically I guess I'm just saying that when Treats came out it made sense that MIA was signing them to NEET and getting them to produce a track for her and after that it really didn't?

It's kind of a bummer how they started out doing a Thing that felt, if not new, very individual and have spent each album making that Thing more boring

this record started edm t/f

new record is their best since the first. varied, assured, the hooks finally match the bluster. it does sound a little stitched together through email attachments but i'm less bothered by it the more i listen

I am surprised by how clear her voice is and how assured it is, and I am confused that I'm reacting to it as if it was a bad thing.

that was how i felt about half of bitter rivals

"i can't stand you anymore" is such a jam

Revisiting albums from the 2010-2019 as is usual at the end of every decade and I did a 180 turn on this one. I hated it so much when it came out, but nowadays I think the red level aesthetic and their commitment to it is actually impressive, regret not partying to this one back then as I had the chance and even saw them live... I was on the wrong side of history. They never made anything half as good as Treats though.

treats was a v special album

No, Reign of Terror is actually phenomenal. I much prefer it. I'm kind of disturbed how bad these guys got afterwards. I'm not sure what happened. I guess the band couldn't adapt to their own ambitions, which never seemed especially clear.

Come think, surprised Lynch did not feature them in season 3. Maybe not his palette. I viewed all his featured his bands as in some way a force of Americana, which Sleigh Bells obsessively are.

I still play "Run the Heart" a lot. Reign of Terror as an album doesn't work for me but you can pull an A+ EP out of with "Comeback Kid", "Demons", and "Never Say Die"

still sad the entire music ecosystem didn't rearrange itself to sound like treats

With you 100% there.

I could never get into this group, which is weird because I absolutely love Andrew WK and The Go! Team, and this kind of fits in a nexus between those. On the other hand, I could also describe that last Crying album in a similar fashion, and I loved that.

I admittedly resented them upon first contact for reasons beyond me. I think seeing them live zilched whatever concerns floated. The bass was so thick at the concert I was at I ran experiments on my jaw to see whether I could feel it in my teeth.

top ten album of the decade imo

It's way up there. The follow-up is highly underrated too.

I'm kind of sad that tinnitus-pop never really took off as a Thing

I feel like 'Give Yourself A Try' by the 1975 owes something to Sleigh Bells

Excited to hear this - sounding better than they have in YEARS
https://sleighbells.bandcamp.com/album/texis

haven't kept up with them for a while but that song sounds great

It's out - seems quite low key thus far, like minimal maximalism. Beats are more EDM than the digital Bonham stomp they once had, and the guitars are equal parts glass and shred. Preview track "Locust Laced" is the most fired-up, but I'm optimistic it's all gonna grow on me.

almost an EDM Chromatics vibe interrupted by TRVE SHRED GVITARS

ooh "True Seekers" is a sweeping pop ballad with very specific vibes, Berlin maybe?