Bitter Rivals is not only a solid development in Sleigh Bells' sound, but in my opinion their best album to date. Admittedly I had my own little problems with their first 2 albums, namely that Treats tended to bleed together from track to track & Reign of Terror (despite greatly improved songwriting) sometimes dragged out its song lengths longer than they needed to be. But on BitterBitter Rivals is not only a solid development in Sleigh Bells' sound, but in my opinion their best album to date. Admittedly I had my own little problems with their first 2 albums, namely that Treats tended to bleed together from track to track & Reign of Terror (despite greatly improved songwriting) sometimes dragged out its song lengths longer than they needed to be. But on Bitter Rivals I think they basically took the best traits of both albums & mashed them together, while adding a couple new ingredients to the mix. Like Treats, the songs are extremely straightforward & to-the-point, with no time for meandering or over-repetition. But like Reign of Terror the songs individually are very well-written, with a lot of attention being paid to production & melody & even throwing in some more instrumentation in the form of synths or layered backing vocals. The title track is a pretty clear representation of what you're gonna hear, despite the awkward acoustic intro that might take a while to grow on you. Bitter Rivals is also home to a ton of catchy, bombastic, arena-ready choruses that aren't afraid of getting over-the-top in the vocal delivery, namely on “Minnie” & “Sing Like a Wire”. On the other side of the coin though, like on Reign of Terror there are some equally rewarding softer moments like on “Young Legends”, “To Hell with You” & “Love Sick” that with slightly different production could've passed as lost 80's electro-pop power ballads. There are also some of the best vocal performances & most diverse instrumentation & songwriting approaches of Sleigh Bells' discography thus far on this album. I'll admit that there are a couple tracks that didn't really do anything special for me (which is admittedly a pretty big deal for a 10-song 30-minute album) but they more blended in with the formula than anything else, and it didn't really detract from the album listen as a whole, which is a great one. They basically did what a one-style band/artist is supposed to do: keeping it similar while adding interesting new stuff here & there. If you were turned off by them before, this isn't gonna convince you otherwise. But if you're a fan of Sleigh Bells on either of the previous albums, I can't see any reason why you wouldn't like this.
Top 5 tracks: Sing Like a Wire, Minnie, Tiger Kit, Bitter Rivals, To Hell with You
Score: 83/100
(For a longer more in-depth review go to my Facebook page That Non-Elitist Music Fan.)… Collapse