Skip to content
Reviews

Sleigh Bells, ‘Treats’ (N.E.E.T/Mom + Pop)

In 1986’s battle for most abrasive use of negative space-Big Black’s Atomizer vs. Run-D.M.C.’s Raising Hell-New York duo Sleigh Bells would’ve been party uniters and party starters. Monumentally caustic but hypothetically a dance band, Sleigh Bells sculpt infectious double-dutch funk from an unlikely acid bath of distorted drum machines and nasal pigfuck guitars. Frontwoman Alexis Krauss floats above this mess of blown-out corrosion with playful jump-rope slaps and bubblegum snaps. The nursery-rhyme boom-bap sometimes falls into a nostalgia wormhole (see the Saturday-morning-cartoon raps and chillwaved Funkadelic sample of “Rill Rill”), but this tight 32-minute set rarely leaves room for anything but head-knocking Atari Twentysomething Riots.