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Sleigh Bells Plan Cleaner, More Melodic Album for 2013

Sleigh Bells Alexis Krauss and Derek Miller third album

Sleigh Bells are still on the road in support of their Essential-branded Reign of Terror, and already the Brooklyn noise-pop duo has its sights set on the next album. As the Huffington Post reports, instrumental half Derek Miller said earlier this month Sleigh Bells are now “halfway” through a planned 2013 follow-up. “We’ll have three full-length albums in three years,” Miller’s quoted as saying.

Indications are Sleigh Bells’ not-yet-titled third album will continue their trajectory from blown-speaker cheerleader chants to more conventionally tuneful material. That’s a path the pair already took from their style-setting, “why didn’t I think of that?!” 2010 debut, Treats, to this year’s emotionally wracked hair-metal guitar demolition Reign of Terror. “Sonically, it’s a lot more clean,” Miller told HuffPo. “It might sound surprising.”

Sleigh Bells singer Alexis Krauss, who already brought more of a melodic, pop/R&B influence to the latest album, will reportedly be going further in that direction next time. “I use my voice in more of a, dare I say, traditional way,” she’s quoted as saying. “We’re fully collaborating now.”

The “turning point” in the duo’s collaboration, according to Miller, was Reign of Terror‘s party-rocking first single “Comeback Kid.” He told HuffPo: “I gave her the instrumental, and within five minutes, we had a whole song. It opened my eyes. I felt like she was extremely underutilized. I’m not spread quite as thin this time. She’s doing most of the heavy lifting on this.”

Three songs are basically ready to go except for mastering, Miller reportedly said, though he noted he might still keep fiddling with the tracks. As long as everybody’s loosely Maya-inspired predictions of apocalypse are wrong — or, given Sleigh Bells’ assaultive sound, even if they’re right — 2013 can’t come soon enough.

Check out SPIN’s March/April 2012 cover story, Sleigh Bells: Bringin’ on the Heartbreak