Brooklyn rock duo Sleigh Bells, known for their intense live performances and genre-bending hard rock sounds, released their fourth album, Jessica Rabbit, on 11 November. The 14 track recording features some of the most sophisticated sounds that the pair have recorded, while still maintaining the avant-garde hardcore edge that has defined their music.
Critics have given the band’s music over a dozen clever labels, but their sound really is their own unique amalgam of hardcore rock, punk, and heavy metal music. The new recording maintains a pace much like a punk album, with most songs lasting well under 4 minutes. Surprisingly, however, vocalist extraordinaire Alexis Krauss and guitarist Derek Edward Miller manage to record some tunes on Jessica Rabbit that are mainstream pop enough to possibly make it to top forty airplay.
The cleverly melodic and well-crafted, ‘I Can’t Stand You Anymore’ may qualify as a notified pop hit. On the short track, ‘Loyal For’, the duo seems to be channelling a more haunting sound reminiscent of the master song crafters Garbage. Other Songs on the album, like the rhythmic ‘Crucible’, seem to borrow from the best aspects of early White Stripes. But the recording is also full of the ear shattering, intensive rock sounds that have made the band famous, like the mosh pit inspiring ‘Throw Me Down The Stairs’. Jessica Rabbit is sure to please hardcore audiophiles.
