Sleigh Bells Want to Be a Different Band on New Album » PopMatters

Sleigh Bells’ new album is the sound of a band who desperately want to move on from being pigeonholed, but toss in some distracting, misplaced easter eggs.

Bunky Becky Birthday Boy Sleigh Bells Mom + Pop 4 April 2025

In 2010, Sleigh Bells’ debut album Treats sliced clean through the neck of several tired and corny indie trends like a cartoon katana set ablaze, then wrote its sole demand in its victims’ blood: LOUDER. The LP remains singular 15 years after the fact, stuffed to the brim with crunchy, destroyed beats blown into the red; demonically catchy cheerleader vocals; and arguably some of the only genuinely iconic guitar riffs produced by millennials. Its lyrics are cool, menacing nonsense, seared into the brains of anyone who went to a good house party in the ten-odd years following its release. 

It’s no surprise that, fair or not, their debut comes up in nearly every review of their five subsequent albums, each lamenting Sleigh Bells‘ inability to recapture the magic with recycled ideas, failed experiments, and a flaccid approach to rock production. That they keep getting reviews at all is a testament to the special something they’ll always have: Treats is seriously that good. Maybe one day they’ll deliver on their promise.

Unfortunately, 4 April 2025 was not that day. Bunky Becky Birthday Boy (ugh), the group’s sixth studio effort, proves that even if Treats was not a fluke, guitarist Derek Miller and singer Alexis Krauss don’t understand what exactly makes them a good band. Like any of the last several Sleigh Bells records, they attempt to up the ante for their signature sound, but wind up scrapping their best songs for parts that can’t stand on their own. 

Bunky Becky Birthday Boy is loud, yes, but mixed so clear, bright, and tinny that it’s grating instead of bone-shaking. The singing is girlish and devious, but often used in the service of literal nursery rhymes, chintzy and annoying like one of Die Antwoord‘s worst. The defining trait of the album, similar to 2016’s Jessica Rabbit, is a feeling of “randomness”, a disorienting kitchen-sink approach to songwriting that keeps its listeners from ever settling into a groove, ever getting to scream along, ever getting to be in on its sense of humor.

However, despite all the insane sounds and surprises, Treats wasn’t random: it was highly calculated, tightly edited, and knew the power of a little fearful quiet before plunging us back into the madness. Bunky Becky Birthday Boy is busy and ugly, and despite so much more emphasis on singing over shouting, it’s not especially musical.

Take “Can I Scream”, a twitchy and frantic piece of pop-rock so incapable of committing to a single idea that your only options are to shrug or roll your eyes. Rapidfire synthesized orchestra hits beat you over the head for a while, then disappear completely, leaving you with a pretty tepid piece of late-career Green Day. “Last level, nah, last level, nah, last level, nah” Krauss repeats–a chorus that, if treated with respect, could have some impact. Instead, the production is squeaky-clean, the mix is bizarrely quiet and small, and no trace of the energy behind a song like “Riot Rhythm” is to be found.

That cleanliness is the album’s greatest sin, and maybe the fatal flaw of all the other records post-Treats. In the press cycle leading up to their sophomore, Reign of Terror, Derek celebrated the band’s upgrade in recording capability following the success of the extremely DIY Treats, noting that the sound of drum machines splitting apart and guitars being pushed to their limits was a result of forced limitations.

However, that distortion and roughness are what separate Treats from everything that’s followed. Things kept getting twinklier and glossier with each release. “Tell Em” envelops you; “Life Was Real” is just someone yelling in your face.

Also mentioned in Reign of Terror’s press was that it was the first chance for Krauss to contribute some proper songwriting. Recruited as a vocalist for Treats, her input was mostly in the delivery of material Miller had already written—an absolutely indispensable part of that album’s success. However, from Reign onward, a featherlight and overwrought approach to melody takes hold of their discography. Krauss’ singing and the group’s joint writing efforts across Bunky Becky Birthday Boy are no exception.

These songs have almost no sense of urgency, anger, or playfulness. Krauss’ voice is sometimes breathy, sometimes strained, but altogether kind of flat. Its place in the mix on this album doesn’t help. She’s buried in a mess of intense, sparring sounds that are such a distracting ill fit that you can’t even process what’s going on melodically. By extension, almost nothing on this LP is catchy; each song is barely differentiated from the last.

The exception is “Bunky Pop”, a song determined to get by on its own ridiculousness à la 100 Gecs–the current torchbearers for the Treats sound–but unlike Gecs, the sense of irony isn’t clear, and neither is the joke, if there even is one. However, if this song isn’t supposed to be kind of jokey, then it’s indefensibly annoying. 

There’s a vague 1980s sensibility across the tracklist, too; some John Hughes soundtrack vibe underneath all the noise. This approach makes the splashy drums and muted picking on “Blasted Shadow” pleasant and sweet, but nothing close to what anyone is coming to this band for. “Roxette Ric” apes INXS and Cyndi Lauper into new, poppier territory for the band. “This Summer” conjures the spirit of Good Charlotte, whatever that’s worth to you.

On each Sleigh Bells album 2013 and onward, there’s at least one song that comes damn closeto reaching old heights. On Bitter Rivals, the reworked Treats B-Side “To Hell With You”; on Jessica Rabbit, the thundering bratty freakout of “Rule Number One”. On Bunky Becky Birthday Boy, that song is troublingly absent.

This album is the sound of a band who desperately want to move on from being pigeonholed, but can’t keep themselves from tossing in some distracting, misplaced easter eggs for the people still holding out 15-year-old hope. We’d be looking at a very different record–and a very different review–if Sleigh Bells just made the synth-rock LP bubbling under the surface here. Instead, they’re preoccupied with making good on a promise they’ve now proven they can’t keep.