By SEAN DETORE
MyNorthwest.com

My goal for the night was, and always had been to stand outside Neumos and listen to Sleighbells from the sidewalk. You see, Neumos is one of the few venues that lends itself well for that purpose as it proved successful when I did the same thing at a recent St. Vincent show.

We arrive at Neumos and decide (after chatting with a scalper about possible tickets which was no help at all) that maybe we could get some attention with two teeny, tiny signs. I mean, we actually look like people who really want to go to this show and not some shady character who will turn around and sell the $20 tickets for $100 or something stupid. We were standing on the corner of Pike & 10th for approximately 10 minutes when two folks came over and said they had some tickets that they wanted to part with. Glory! These teeny, tiny signs actually worked! Turns out the girl half of this couple was sick and they couldn’t/didn’t want to go to the show. We offered lots of money and gift cards but this awesome two-some wanted nothing more than face value for these highly sought after tickets. Sold!

Sleighbells is Derek Miller and Alexis Krauss and they make some of the best distortion heavy, screamy, and hard hitting electro/noise rock that you could ever want. Derek is on production duty and creates all the extremely fuzzed out beats for the duo while also taking the lead (and only) guitar parts and Alexis provides blood curdling vocals that will split your skull right in half. When it comes to volume these two push the VU meters into the red and every song always seems on the verge of clipping. Check out some video from last nights show…

A/B Machines

Holly

Whether it was the intensity in the crunch of the guitar that Derek was shredding or the spazmatic writhing and hair flipping that Alexis provided for the crowd, these two were overflowing with explosive energy. In between songs Alexis announced that this was their first time playing Seattle and to expect a Sleighbells debut record out May 11th called Treats. Check the song below. I don’t know the title but I’m pretty sure it will end up on the new record. How do I know? Oh, maybe because I chatted with Derek after the show for a minute and he told me so…

With everything I said above about the intensity and ferocity of the band they do in fact have a softer side too.

Ring Ring

Overall, Sleighbells put on a show among shows and will continue to delight and deafen audiences everywhere. Everything about Sleighbells makes them stand above the rest and will make them a dominating force within the music world in the coming months.

We also got some great stills from the show. Check out the photos.