REVIEW: Sleigh Bells, Sabri @ Paradise Rock Club 01/24

It has been the consensus among fans of the Brooklyn-based indie punk duo Sleigh Bells that the quality of their output has been steadily declining over the last few years. Their debut release, 2010’s Treats, saw considerable commercial success due to its innovatively raw, thrashing pop style. The band enjoyed similarly positive reception with Reign of Terror in 2012. A year and a half later, though, they released Bitter Rivals, a collection of tracks with markedly cleaner production and more prominent melodies; fans and music blogs alike considered it a watered-down version of their earlier albums and mourned the loss of the distortion so crucial to the Sleigh Bells sound. 2015’s Jessica Rabbit brought more of the same, and by the time mini-album Kid Kruschev was released in October 2017, no one was surprised that it appeared even worse than its predecessors.  

However, when Sleigh Bells performed at the Paradise Rock Club on Jan. 24, it became clear that lousy studio production is to blame for the poor reception of their recent releases; all the songs they played, including the newer ones, demonstrated the same sonic and performative energy that can be heard on their earlier albums.  

While opener Sabri was not the most fitting choice to set the stage for the headliners (Sleigh Bells frontwoman Alexis Krauss later explained that one of the band members is a dear friend who “has toured with us, has done all sorts of weird shit with us”), they certainly didn’t fail to captivate the crowd. They exhibited a more mellow style, but one that was nonetheless intense and driving. The last song of their set was a standout, the singer lamenting “It’s only a matter of time before I lose my mind,” backed by a powerful, almost shoegaze-like wall of noise.

Sleigh Bells took the stage in a characteristically dramatic fashion, with the first few seconds of Kid Kruschev’s opening track “Blue Trash Mattress Fire” playing to a dark room before Krauss eventually made a striking entrance, finishing the song while posing in front of a myriad of blue and purple strobe lights. An incomparably dynamic frontwoman, Krauss donning a bright red vintage Miami Heat jacket over a cropped white graphic t-shirt, her signature bangs long enough to cover her eyes; she danced around the entire length of the stage and was not the least bit shy about interacting with the audience. Immediately the band ripped into “Riot Rhythm,” a hit from Treats, which incited a fierce energy in the crowd. Krauss encouraged the crowd to sing and dance several times, and after an extraordinary performance of “Comeback Kid,” the leading single from Reign of Terror, Krauss breathlessly exclaimed “Holy SHIT!” She got to show off her pipes on Jessica Rabbit’s “I Can Only Stare,” belting out high notes to prove that she can sing as well as she can perform. Not a soul in the room was standing still during the performance, and the band seemed to enjoy the crowd as much as the crowd enjoyed the band, with Krauss remarking, “Seriously guys, New York was cool, we love New York, but fuck, Boston, you guys just bring it!”

There was no shortage of energy exuded from the other half of the duo, guitarist Derek Miller, nor from the touring band members: everyone on stage was moving and headbanging with a contagious vitality. No one, though, could outshine Krauss, who was jumping into the audience any chance she could get, yelling and singing with everything she could muster and then some. The band did not stop or slow down for the entire performance, and with the main set’s closing song, Treats’ “Crown on the Ground,” Krauss dramatically leaned back for a long-anticipated bout of crowdsurfing. They waited barely a minute before coming back onstage to perform an encore, the first song of which, “And Saints” from Kid Kruschev, was arguably the sole low point of the show, as its lack of a rhythm section slightly killed the vibe of the severely pumped-up crowd. The rest of the encore, though, did not disappoint. “A/B Machines,” from Treats, brought back the unmatchable energy. Throughout the show, several crowd members had belligerently yelled “Play ‘Rill Rill!’” referring to their breakout single from Treats, and they got their wish with the closing song of the show, as Krauss once again came into the crowd, “so we can sing this together.”

Overall, the Sleigh Bells performance was pleasantly surprising considering the lack of energy felt in their recent releases. Hopefully in the future they’ll perfect their studio production, as it’s clear that the original sound that fans know and love is not going anywhere.

-Leonora Telford