Album review: Sleigh Bells, Kid Kruschev

Derek Miller and Alexis Krauss of Sleigh Bells. Photo / Getty Images

This year has called for someone to make a stand and Sleigh Bells just made it.

After all the Trump, Weinstein, #MeToo drama and more, hearing Alexis Krauss stick it to the man to the tune of a raucous, guitar-driven pop hit, is everything I didn't even know I'd been waiting for.

"My past is littered with the bones of men who / were fools enough to sleep on me," she sings on Favorite Transgressions, adding: "No reprieve, no redemption".

And on And Saints, she chants: "Tear up, gear up, stand up" - a call to action, if you take it as such.

Kid Kruschev marks a change in Sleigh Bells in which they're focusing more on a storytelling aspect, which has been missing from their previous works.

Alexis' crystal clear vocals take the lead rather than having to battle Derek Edward Miller's monstrous guitar riffs, and she tells stories that could just as easily be about personal relationships as they could be about global politics - especially if you want to read into the album's title, reportedly named after Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

She references the red, white and blue in the opening track, swearing: "I'll do it, I'll jump . . . 'Cause goddamn, this shit is too much . . . Enough is enough".

She sings of war, pain, "hideous things" and needing a defence and you can take it how you want to which, in a world where people are singing self-obsessed songs about celebrity feuds and leaving nothing to the imagination, is refreshing.

The downside is that this isn't really an album, at seven songs, it's an EP they've dressed up as a "mini-LP". It's also more subdued than we're used to, with more poppy synths and less guitar madness, but it does feel like they're working toward something big.

We may have to wait for the next "mini-LP" to get to that.

Sleigh Bells, Kid Kruschev

Artist: Sleigh Bells
Album: Kid Kruschev
Label: Torn Clean
Verdict: A ballsy call to war with a powerful pop front line.