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Arts
ALBUM REVIEW
Tuesday, October 8, 2013 — 7
ALBUM REVIEW
Bells breaks mold Dale finishes strong with latest effort By HANNAH WEINER Daily Arts Writer
‘Rivals’ strips down sound, strengthens noise-pop genre By ERIKA HARWOOD Daily Arts Writer
The fact that noise pop is a legitimate enough genre to garner its own music festival, podcasts and (of course) Wiki- Apedia page can be unsettling Bitter Rivals as well as eye Sleigh Bells roll-inducing. As of late, the Mom + Pop subgenres that have branched out of independent labels not only sound like adjectives arbitrarily pulled out of a hat (see: glo-fi, trip hop and glitterphonics — I made one of those up, but good luck guessing which one), but also just plain awful. The idea of noise pop seems contradictory in the most obnoxious way imaginable, like a nü metal Miley Cyrus. Despite the not-so-positive preconceived notions that can arise from hearing a style described as the aforementioned, Sleigh Bells continues to shatter any and all negative expectations with their third album, Bitter Rivals. The title track opens the album with the most natural sounds ever to be heard on a Sleigh Bells album, from the hard strums of an acoustic guitar all the way down to the barking dogs in the background, before lead singer Alexis Krauss explodes, singing, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times / I had to kill the new sheriff in town.” Pounding percussion and muffled synths serve as
MOM + POP
Picket fences are so last year.
a fitting foundation for Krauss’s combative presence before she reverts back to her softer side, gently crooning her way through the chorus. The back and forth of subtlety and aggression laid out on the opening track proves to be the recurring theme of the album. “Sing Like a Wire” starts out with a simple beat as Krauss softly sings, “static in the sentence, static in the dirt.” When she finally bursts into the chorus yelling, “Sing like a wire!” it doesn’t go unnoticed. These captivating contrasts give Bitter Rivals peaks of varying interest and moments of surprise, ensuring that no one’s attention can stray far from the album for too long. Bitter Rivals also marks the most melodic shift forward for the group, with genuinely singable tracks like “Young Legends” and “Tiger Kit,” both of which show off Krauss’s vocal abilities outside of yelling on
top of the hyper-intense bevy of instruments. This simplicity may be due in part to Andrew Dawson, who mixed the album and also served as the engineer for Kanye West’s Yeezus earlier this year — which was noted for its own stripped-down sound. The sing-along style of both of these tracks offers a playeddown version to the typical noise-pop genre. Instead, they explore a refreshing sound to what the group seemed to become accustomed to on Reign of Terror, which came off as too hyped up for any substance to shine through. While Bitter Rivals doesn’t mark a complete departure for Sleigh Bells, it further proves that all bands that get classified under some unintentionally hilarious subgenre deserve the flak we’d assume based solely on the moniker. If anything, the band proves noise pop is a genre all its own, and one to be reckoned with, at that.
Listening to The Speed of Things will make one anxious. Not in a bad way, necessarily — more in a finger-tapping, leg-shaking, gotta-get-outof-the-houseB+ and-explore, “carpe diem” The Speed kind of way. of Things Detroit natives Daniel Dale EarnZott and Joshua hardt Jr. Jr. Epstein, better known as Dale Warner Bros. Earnhardt Jr. Jr., shaped their sophomore album around the idea of the accelerating rate at which everything moves nowadays. But these two aren’t curmudgeons by any means; featuring synth-driven pop music, The Speed of Things demonstrates itself as the perfect soundtrack for our generation’s craving for everything faster, everything bigger.
‘Speed’ through an easy listen. You know that quote from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”? “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” That’s the crux of The Speed of Things. Life moves fast — things, in general, move fast. Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. has attempted to stop and look around and asks us to do the same. The band passes on wisdom in the form of adages sung over shimmering electro pop. Generally, all the tracks sound nuanced. But as a rule, they follow a simple formula: layered synths (some twang-y, some chiming) and high-energy drumming, with the occasional guitar. If you like this
WARNER BROS.
The question is, who will finish first?
equation, The Speed of Things will work its magic on you, serving as the soundtrack for daytime occasions and lingering into the nighttime, too. And even if this isn’t your cup of tea, you’d still have to try to dislike this album. Though it’s only the band’s second album, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. has mastered the art of synthesized pop. Synthesized arpeggios, guitar riffs and dizzying synthesizer melodies (everything sandwiched in synths) accompany fairly standard electro-pop vocals on all 13 tracks. Songs like “Beautiful Dream,” “If You Didn’t See Me (Then You Weren’t On the Dancefloor)” and “Run” hasten your pulse as Zott and Epstein sing, “You’re supposed / to see your age rewind.” This idea of looking back to the past, embracing the present and considering the future dances its way through the remainder of the album. While the group follows a straight line to wonderfully devised electro pop, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. dabbles in different styles of presenting its sound. “Dark Water” bears resemblances
to Andrew Bird, featuring whistling, bizarre percussion and whirling vocals. “Run,” on the other hand, has perky synths and sounds like vocalist Nate Ruess of the band fun. For two low-key guys who started off making basementstudio recordings in Royal Oak, Mich., a high-profile streaming in The New York Times and a backing from Warner Bros. Records must seem like a dream. Zott and Epstein evoke this surreal wistfulness in the album. The spinning world around them has proven to be effective music for effervescent electro pop. In The Speed of Things, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. has nailed the idea of electronic landscapes worth an easy listen. The synthbased arrangements and dancebased beats sound effortless. Yet, even in relaxed songs, like “Mesopotamia” and “Gloria,” the peculiar percussion and scatterbrained synths will grab you by the shoulders, shake you and make you feel nostalgic for days when the speed of things wasn’t so damn fast.