Sleigh Bells | Treats

Family Average: 5/7

Look below and see what the family had to say.

Sleigh Bells baby! I am pretty sure the lead singer went to our high school. Anyway not too important just a little fun bit to kick off the review. This is a stellar introduction to the lo-fi pop genre. The entire album carries through it an infectious upbeat tone while constantly slathering everything in a delicious layer of distortion. Sleigh Bells came around a pretty neat time in indie music. Other acts like MIA, and Ringo Deathstarr were introducing a new generation to a low-fi style that starkly contrasted the hyper processed music that was playing on the MTV jumpstart countdown. It’s raw, funky and a hoot.

4/7

I remember when I first heard this album in high school. I was listening to these guys alongside Animal Collective, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Smith Westerns…a lot of those bands that got a lot of NYLON coverage. It was a moment when sounds were getting smashed and patchworked together into really catchy and simultaneously harsh music.  

Treats takes a pretty simple formula of the sampled, heavy bass with industrial, glitchy noise, and accents it with female vocals that are equal parts airy and mechanical. Each track has an immediacy that keeps your energy and pulse up. There’s a couple of proper earworms on this album that I find myself mouthing the words along with — due to equal parts nostalgia and the nice hooks. 

At times, it does get a bit repetitive, a little rough, but that’s kind of part of the industrial lo-fi charm. 

5/7 

Ooh Sleigh Bells. Skate and surf edits loved this album. It’s really a perfect fit for them cus its an explosion of sounds, punchy, upbeat, something out of the norm. When it came out I just remember it was just a different sound with the chaos of noises and those angelic female vocals. All the tracks keep up that energy that starts immediately. They’re probably really tired of hearing about it but “Rill Rill” is just a gem, classic. 

5/7