Sleigh Bells

"A/B Machines"

by K. Ross Hoffman

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Published: Apr 28, 2010

Aaron Richter (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Talk about boom boom pow. This week's Rolling Stone features Will.i.am blathering about the hidden avant-garde qualities of his group's world-conquering one-note-wonder: "Fool, it's the most complex s--t you could even fathom." I doubt you'd catch Brooklyn duo Sleigh Bells — one former hardcore punker, one erstwhile girl-group pop tart — claiming anything of the sort about their own equally giddy, bombastic racket, which is just as pea-brained, if a good deal more black-eyed. Beyond its bruising, preposterous levels of overdrive, "A/B Machines" actually has three notes (at least some of the time), though it has only one lyric: Alexis Krauss, on that next-level digital spit, explaining the locations of her machines. Actually, it's a bit stupefying to think that there could be any more than one (barely functioning) set of machines involved here. Must be complex.

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