Review of Sleigh Bells at Whelans on February 18th
Review by James Hendicott
Normally, if the headliner at a show played a set of all of 40 minutes and left a large proportion of their musical output to be produced by the backing track, I’d leave feeling a touch short-changed. Normal, though, isn’t a word you can even try to apply to Sleigh Bells. Made up of a Derek – a former member of a thumping hardcore band – and Alexis – who until recently was a professional studio singer for pop acts – they merge in the most unlikely of ways, forming a frantic, intense and insanely loud combination in a live setting.
Having stacked the amps high at the back of the stage, Whelan’s back room genuinely struggles to contain such a thumping line in viciously strung together tunes. Those down the front are bouncing happily off each other, throwing shapes and indulging in an almost spiritual love-in with the stars-and-stripes clad front woman. Slouching, morphing beats and Alexis’ ability to adapt her vocal so substantially keep this explosive performance more than just entertaining: it’s utterly compulsive.
When we’re lucky enough to catch the band before the show, Derek describes their live performance as “half way between a band and a DJ”. When Sleigh Bells open with the positively lairy ‘Infinity Guitars’, it’s a concept that suddenly makes a lot of sense. Beatsmith Derek is frantically thrashing away at stage front, while Alexis’ raw and piercing vocals throw the gig into proper ‘angst’ territory, while the backing track does the rest. Describing Sleigh Bells is something even the band struggle with: they don’t fit comfortably into any genre, yet live there are moments of utter metal-like mayhem, hints of hip-hop rhythms and even the odd moments of poetic calm, offered in this case by the calmest moment, single ‘Rill Rill’. The clincher, though, is the element of completely unfathomable sound that seems to creep in underneath it all, like a beat-crammed The Go! Team after each member’s necked half a pint of Jaeger.
At such intensity, 40 minutes feels like a whole lot longer, and with large chunks of debut album ‘Treats’ on display, the band’s first ever trip to Irish soil is greeted with more acclaim than they could ever have hoped for. Ten songs, a set that’s performed like it’s our last night on earth and a serious case of musical brain melt. Sleigh Bells might be an up-and-coming buzz band, but a sweatbox, bustling crowd leave with no doubt this is the real deal. We’ll leave it to one stunned concert goer’s tweet to sum up: “Dear Sleigh Bells, kindly replace the roof you just blew off our venue, best regards, Whelan’s”. Wow.