‘Jessica Rabbit’, the new album by Sleigh Bells, is an ambitious beast. It takes the brutish contradictions present in their all-or-nothing noise pop and amps them up even further, venturing deeper into mainstream waters while offering concrete reminders of their distorted power. It wants to bludgeon and caress in equal measure, but ends up keeping its twin ambitions at arm’s length from one another.
If ‘Treats’, the duo’s 2010 debut, was a neon-streaked primal scream, then album four is the closest Alexis Krauss and Derek Miller have come to fully embodying the pop tropes that have always stalked the jarring beats and arena rock guitars that drive their work.
Accordingly, Krauss does much of the heavy lifting here. It would be simple to describe her performance as ‘powerhouse’, but in truth it would also be ever so slightly wide of the mark. As brazen as ‘Jessica Rabbit’ largely is, her vocals are responsible for adding depth, light and shade to its best moments, with versatility rather than grandstanding the order of the day.
She alternates between direct, urgent stabs, longing refrains and the sort of belt-it-to-the-cheap-seats power that could knock the dust loose from arena rafters, forming an emotional core for the metallic bluster to orbit. The record’s opening salvo - It’s Just Us Now, Torn Clean and Lightning Turns Sawdust Gold - veer wildly between extremes and demonstrate clearly its capacity to excite, with Krauss nervelessly keeping her hand on the wheel.
The first song finds Miller trying to kick doors down with slabs of Def Leppard riffage while Krauss dredges a soaring hook from the sludge, while its immediate follow up successfully harnesses the swirling atmospherics that will soon bog down the album’s middle section.
Lightning Turns Sawdust Gold, meanwhile, finds Sleigh Bells showing that they could comfortably muscle up to any pop heavyweight they might choose. Its hook, in fact, could easily belong to internet villain du jour Taylor Swift. “I was dreaming of a dead end street that we used to run down,” Krauss sings. “We’re running around 'til our hearts break down. There's no need for that now.”
But following the addictive I Can’t Stand You Anymore (another chameleonic success for Krauss), there is a noticeable sag. It only lasts a couple of songs, but the momentum-sapping damage it does is noticeable. Throw Me Down The Stairs and Unlimited Dark Paths soon attempt to mix the earlier cocktail of melodrama and full-throttle shredding, but the results are less than convincing given the lingering excitement from the speed at which Sleigh Bells slammed out of the gate. Its pop songs never look completely at home as time wears on, while its rock songs can’t reignite the spark.
When ‘Jessica Rabbit’ is good (which it generally is), it’s a telling reminder of what great hooks can do under wildly different circumstances. When it’s not, it’s a quick spiral towards a sugar crash. But, it’s one worth suffering through.
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