AMS album of the week: Bitter Rivals

First, some honesty, I chose to review this album because I expected it to be really bad. The hype died years ago for Sleigh Bells, and I’ve yet to find a positive review of this one. I fancied tearing this apart in the written press, because that is what makes me feel big. I’m disappointed on all levels. It’s not quite bad enough to completely tear apart, but it’s not good either.

Sleigh Bells basically got noticed for being loud. Whereas most noise pop bands take their cues from alt. favourites like My Bloody Valentine and Pavement, on their debut record Treats, Sleigh Bells’ big chunky riffs were reminiscent of the likes of Metallica and Guns n Roses. It was fresh, it was exciting, it was a bit of a gimmick. Two records later, it’s hard to know what to do. Their second record, Reign of Terror, tried to develop the big loud sound with limited success. As with all bands based on a gimmick, when everyone gets bored of it, what do you do?

They decided to chuck it. The worst thing is, there’s a few tracks that would really suit a big chunky guitar tone, and it’s a real shame it’s not there. ‘Sing Like a Wire’ and ‘Tiger Kit’ are painfully bland, while ‘Minnie’, ‘Sugarcane’ and ‘Bitter Rivals’ aren’t much further ahead. The riffs are clearly superb and with a bit of muscle could carry these tracks, but instead they’re hidden under layers of dull synths. If the whole record was like this, I would have removed the MP3s from my laptop and this review would be more swear words than anything else. Sadly, the synths do work on the rest of the tracks. In fact, on ‘24’ especially, the synths really work. It’s pretty dream pop vocals and synths with chunky drums. It’s not going to set the world alight, but it’s certainly an interesting listen.

I can see why this is getting uniformly panned. It’s an easy target. It’s a previous hype band desperately trying to find a new niche. At points, it is awful. Overall, it really isn’t that bad though. I admit, I’m probably not going to listen to it ever again, and I probably wouldn’t recommend it to anybody, but you know, it could be a lot worse.