Sleigh Bells Live at ACL Live at the Moody Theater SXSW

VEVO put on several major events over the course of SXSW 2012. Key performers included The Shins, Major Lazer and Girl Talk. On this final night of the festival, their largest event was a double bill featuring Nas performing Illmatic and one of the fastest rising stars of the moment, Sleigh Bells. The duo of guitarist Derek E. Miller and Alexis Krauss (augmented live by an extra guitarist Jason Boyer) have exploded from relative obscurity to the cover of SPIN magazine in just a few short years. Their formula is a winning combination of aggressive rock guitars, a sexy/hip look and danceable backing beats. Miller predominantly stays put shredding out heavily tweaked noise and crunchy chords, while Krauss is equal parts charismatic front woman and hype man. Through the first three songs “True Shred Guitar,” “Born to Lose” and “A/B Machines” they built up the pensive crowd’s energy. This gave them room to punch out a few lower bpm numbers without losing the crowd’s interest. Recent single “Comeback Kid” delivered on the cool and catchy appeal of the band, and “Rill Rill” (which Krauss did accompanied only by a backing track) was a soothing and chill testament to the band’s potential range. The band are poised to be breakout stars if they continue this pace. Intriguing by their success is the fact that their sound is so close to many an early 90’s industrial band (looking at you KMFDM) only with just a bit more “cool” factor. We can only hope this helps usher in a full-on industrial revival.