Album Review: Sleigh Bells - Bitter Rivals

5 October 2013 | 2:48 pm | Pete Laurie

Derek Edward Miller’s guitars still offer plenty of fuzzed out, speaker-killing crunch, with a new edge of polished pop that works.

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A combination of bratty rap, sweet melodies and grrrrl aggression, the vocals of Alexis Krauss are disarmingly cute, with an almost siren quality. You're being lured in for the kill, but it's worth it. Derek Edward Miller's guitars still offer plenty of fuzzed out, speaker-killing crunch, with a new edge of polished pop that works.

The opening, title track is a standout with its poppy guitar jangle before launching into that familiar, overblown Sleigh Bells sound. While Sing Like A Wire is a glorious mess of bubble gum vocals, '80s house synth and Marshall stack guitars that somehow never crumbles under its own weight.