Best New Artist Most Likely To Blow Your Speakers

Sleighbells is an electrocore (how many genres can we apply "-core" to? Plenty) dance-pop duo out of New York comprised of Allison Krauss on vocals, formerly of legit teen poppers RubyBlue; and guitarist Derek Miller, who used to specialize in egging on the monster dance circles playing in front of Florida hardcore stalwarts Poison the Well, for whom he also held down guitars and more or less orchestrated those ever-so-brutal breakdowns. I, in fact, remember when Poison the Well first began back in '97 out of the whole post-hardcore/hardcore revival going on all up and down the East Coast, so it's interesting to see what some of those guys, like Miller, are doing now. On paper the joint venture between these two sounds odd, but the combinatory effects of this union are sonically stunning and almost overpowering. Despite all the strong pop sensibilities found here, this is an aggressive, in-your-face record, one to which you can either dance frenetically or rage out and break something, which is exciting, to see and hear that there are still independent musicians who aren't afraid of abandoning delicacy in favor of getting outrageously, ear-bleeding boisterous. It all feels urgent. Here, in Sleigh Bells, Miller controls most of the assaultive rhythmic crunch and frequency-defying beats while Krauss smoothes it all over with her sweet honey-and-whiskey soaked voice. Maybe not all the unexpectedly, there's a raw sexiness about all of this. With so much energy packed into these songs they can't help but be sexy.

Treats, their debut LP, came out yesterday but only on digital. If you want it on wax or--ick--CD, you're going to have to wait until June. Before that all they'd had was a few teaser songs. You can stream the entire album for exactly one week thanks to the good people over at NPR. And for goodness' sake, turn this up loud. I'll throw the first single "Tell 'Em" down below along with one of their earlier tracks, "Crown on the Ground.'

There's been a glut of releases over the past few days which have just been so incredibly good it's hard to decide what to talk about. Of them: The National's new one, Broken Social Scene's new one, Zola Jesus, The Radio Department, Flying Lotus, GOBBLE GOBBLE, too many. This suffices for now. 

"Tell 'Em", the first single. 


"Crown on the Ground", one of their older demos, a little rougher around the edges but still a banger.