Infinity Guitars Tonight…
Just in time for the fireworks, some musical explosions!
I have seen Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, A Place to Bury Strangers, and Swans live. None…I repeat, none of them compare to the glorious, god-destroying loudness of this **checks notes** pop album.
Treats
Sleigh Bells
Noise Pop | 2010
As an introduction—ahem—seriously y’all, this album is really really fucking loud. If you plan to listen along as you read, I in all seriousness, recommend a volume a few notches down from your normal setting.
Note: this album is wicked awesome, and it brings out the dude-bro in me that would normally be concealed in some form of delicate journalistic etiquette. So if that previous paragraph offended your sensibilities, all I have to say is strap-in.
The Loudness War has consumed many eras, usually to the dismay of artists who will kick and scream and curse at mixing and mastering engineers that the reduction in dynamic range required to increase volume is detrimental to sound quality. And, they are technically correct, the best kind of correct.
But…what if you—gasp—wanted to? What if you wanted to give your electro-pop-metal band a harder, harsher, more fuzzed out and distorted sound and also destroy everyone’s cochleas at the same time? Well, good sir or madam, have you considered Hare Krishna? I mean, digital compression?
With the advent of all-digital recording processes, producers who were interested in really fucking with people had all the tools and little-to-no restrictions. No tape, no wax, no discs meant no material costs to doing…whatever you wanted, as many experiments as you needed, until you got it exactly how you liked it. You could totally ruin a perfect take and just hit undo.
Or…you could keep it ruined. And so, here we find Sleigh Bells, screaming out of Brooklyn, the site of so many of our loudest bands, ready blow-up pop music in a massive fire of broken stirrups and shredded guitars.
Tell ‘Em
For an album that existed purely as whispers for years in the musical community, the kick directly in the teeth that is the opening salvo of machine-gun drums, sci-fi sound effects, massive distortion, and Derek Miller’s red-lining guitar squelches dispel any notion that this is all a rumor. Even the claps are eardrum-popping in volume, as Alexis Krauss makes her opening plea. Much of it is…for funsies, so forget about reading into it, but when, through the legion layers of distortion, you hear her sing “you can do your best today,” you fucking believe it, man.
Kids
This song is pure summer fuel. The drums will punch you in the face—a common occurrence on this album—but Krauss’ tale of being drawn to the ocean for sun, sand, beach chairs, salt water. The choruses are a series of vignettes of young women chatting about their plans for the beach, or recapping the day’s rest and relaxation in the warm summer air. This is THE song to blast while cruising down the beach town main drag in your convertible.
Riot Rhythm
“Riot Rhythm” is the song that I would say is the epitome of early Sleigh Bells sound: Krauss’ digitally altered and chopped vocals that are half-sung, half-spoken, half(…one and a half?…)-yelled over a big, BIG beat of electronic kick drums and claps, while Miller’s compressed guitar screams out an earworming lick between each vocal break. The shambling pattern of the drums here is one that pulls you in, and gives the song and way heavier feel despite its low-key, easy-going tempo, while Krauss’ semi-rap is backed by her own airy falsetto. Pure Pop Metal Cool.
Infinity Guitars
You know, for a song called “Infinity Guitars,” this song doesn’t really have a lot. Sure, there’s the little intro chords, but it’s mostly Alexis and the drum machine until—OH SHIT! THERE’S ALL THE GUITARS! BLOWING MY EARDRUMS OUT! GOT IT! SO I GUESS WE’LL BE IN FILM CRIT HULK MODE FOR THE REST OF THIS REWIND! WHAT?! I CAN’T HEAR YOU!! THE GUITARS, YOU SEE! QUITE NUMEROUS, AND QUITE LOUD!!!
Run the Heart
“Run the Heart” is the first cool down song of the album. Much of the sound comes from a Crystal Castles-esque synth palette of glittery, stuttering key loops and fat, booming bass drum beats. Krauss’ vocal performance is similarly low-key, going for breathy, over-the-sunglasses kind of nearly-flat pop delivery that is equal parts tempting and terrifying. What is she planning? It’s a great way to really turn down the temperature and have a point where, for once, you aren’t receiving permanent hearing loss.
Rachel
“Rachel” is another low-tempo track, but this one comes with all the fuzzed out loudness war accoutrements that we’ve come to expect from Sleigh Bells: percussion that’s somehow shoving its way to the front of the class, and a melody that’s blowing out the red end of the meter so bad that it’s staticky. The song is little more than a sonic experiment, but it’s incredibly effective at showing that Sleigh Bells is interested in more than just going as hard as humanly possible.
Rill Rill
If you’ve ever accidentally run into Sleigh Bells, it is because you’ve heard “Rill Rill.” This pleasant little ditty has more listens—by orders of magnitude—than anything else they’ve done. More than “Infinity Guitars,” or “Crown on the Ground” (up next), or their follow-up album’s insanely catchy “Comeback Kid.” But for an album—and band—that’s mostly interested in damaging your inner ear, something this smooth, this light, this…dare I say…complex, is not only unexpected, but totally refreshing. I mean, there’s a vocal break! There’s bells! There’s cooed backing vocals! There’s *gasp* an acoustic guitar!
Don’t get me wrong, I came for the loudness war, but I stay for the “Rill Rill”s, the twists and turns of Sleigh Bells’ catalog that are jaw-droppingly well-written. Songs so good you’ll forget the next one might actually injure you.
Crown on the Ground
Speaking of injuring you, FUCKING GODDAMMIT! EARBUDS NOT RECOMMENDED FOR THIS ONE! Okay so, the little break was nice, but we really need to get that gut-kicking volume back, yeah? “Crown on the Ground” was the first song I ever heard from Sleigh Bells, and it was on many playlists and mixes I made that year. As ear-peircing as Miller’s guitar is here—played, I assume, mere millimeters from the pick-ups—it also has that…late-2000’s-early-2010’s indie rock sound. You know, your Morning Benders, your Beach Houses, your Animal Collectives, your Raconteurs. It was that kind of sound that allowed Sleigh Bells to sneak into many a Pitchfork-bro’s year-end list without even noticing it wasn’t twee.
Straight A’s
Seriously though, this might be the hardest shit I’ve ever heard.
A/B Machines
Krauss’ most blown-out lyrics begin chanting over the loudspeaker, producing their own fuzz and static, before Miller’s guitar starts building up to something. His use of a very surf-rock-inspired chord slide does double duty of prepping you for the incoming awesomeness, while also lulling you with an understatement of just how awesome it’s going to be. When the…let’s call it a chorus, if it can so be called, kicks in, Miller’s string-yanking guitar subliminally forces you to start rocking out. There’s no stopping it, just let it happen.
Treats
Before we dive into the closer, it would be negligent of me not to mention that this track was sampled, literally months later, for the best MIA song, “Meds & Feds,” off her best album, MAYA. Yeah, I said it. Fight me, nerds.
After a hyper-gated intro, veering into psychedelic territory, the big wall of massive drum machines kicks in again, while Krauss begins to coo plaintively over Miller’s roiling sea of guitar sounds. She calls to the drummer boy to “put the move on a beat / Let the other ones stick with me.” Like many of the songs on the album, the structure it repetitive, but that one last cut-away with the teeny tiny glockenspiel, then in the background, Krauss laughs, derisively. She knows what she’s done, and what’s going to happen. Miller’s kick-ass guitar comes back one more time and then, silence; the cut-off leaves your ears fuzzy, as if, oh I don’t know, they were damaged in some way by a loud-ass sound for the last 32 minutes. It’s pure evil. It’s pure genius.
I can tell you with no ego, this is the loudest album I have ever heard. If on your journey, you should play it for God, God will be deaf.
P.S. If I haven’t made it obvious, despite the awesomeness of Miller’s metal guitars, or the surprising calm of Krauss’ perfectly delivered lyrics, the star of this show—and every following Sleigh Bells album—is the drum machine. I don’t know who programmed it, Miller, Krauss, or both, but whoever did it is some kind of wizard that should kept far away from any mixing booth ever again. Like, goddamn, they kick your dick off on every track.
Happy (earplugged) listening!
