Reign of Terror by Sleigh Bells

Reign of Terror, Sleigh Bells' second album, hit on February 21, 2012 via Mom + Pop, and the Brooklyn duo came back swinging harder than they had on Treats. Derek Miller and Alexis Krauss wrote it on the road while touring that debut and spent five months of 2011 recording it, and the difference shows. The blown-out samples take a step back and Miller's guitars take the wheel, stacked into riffs that sound like an arena being demolished, while Krauss rides the wreckage with hooks sweet enough for pop radio. Underneath the noise, the words carry a lot more emotional weight than they used to.

"Comeback Kid" was the lone single, and "Crush" stomps just as hard. Critics mostly came around, it opened at 12 on the Billboard 200, and the pair took it across North America and Europe before Bitter Rivals followed.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.