Photo credit: Raymond Flotat

Sleigh Bells, an edgy, unique, and experimental hard-driven pop band, has recently put itself back on the radar with the announcement of an upcoming album, Jessica Rabbit. The band’s fourth album in seven years, Jessica Rabbit is scheduled to be released  November 11th, 2016. However, the idiosyncratic band has not left its fans to wait before hearing a sound from the new album. Releasing “It’s Just Us Now” as the opening track and first look at the new work of the band, Sleigh Bells showcases a new sound and an even newer and unique vision with the song’s recently dropped music video. The song, with many contrasting and edgy elements, makes way for a music video that perhaps conveys the songs real emotion. Having visuals, implications, and raw power, the music video seems to be a perfect fit for the opening track of the highly anticipated album.

“It’s Just Us Now” consists of heavy hitting drums to the thrashing melody of Derek Miller’s metal guitar. With lyrics such as the chorus’s repeated line, “I wanna die,” the song blends the emotion of overwhelming confusion with anger and angst. The music video, complementary to the song, seems to use its visual elements to show just this. Beginning with an anarchistic sentence across the screen of a person always having the urge to cause chaos (i.e. “To start a fire”), the video cuts to Alexis Krauss in a goth like demeanor, messing up her mascara in a pool while belting out the edgy lyrics that contribute to the song’s emotion. As her angst and breakdown is seen with this type of imagery and melody, Derek Miller can be seen in bits putting rage into his guitar licks and wearing a frightening bandanna over his face. Then, only adding to the tone, Krauss sings without an ounce of meekness, “I wanna die” repeated until the last line of the chorus which is “with you.” As this is done, a dark cemetery is shown. The music video illustrates the feeling of the song while firmly establishing the delusional and dark ora of its setting.

Marking a point where anticipation for Sleigh Bells’s new album can be heightened, “It’s Just Us Now” implicitly show the direction the band is taking with Jessica Rabbit. Though it is to be released in the fall, 14 tracks are on it and ordered in the following way:

01 It’s Just Us Now
02 Torn Clean
03 Lightning Turns Sawdust Gold
04 I Can’t Stand You Anymore
05 Crucible
06 Loyal For
07 I Can Only Stare
08 Throw Me Down the Stairs
09 Unlimited Dark Paths
10 I Know Not to Count on You
11 Rule Number One
12 Baptism by Fire
13 Hyper Dark
14 As If

Jessica Rabbit is expected to be an album unlike any of Sleigh Bells’s other. It is said to be comprised of wild arrangements, a guitar both sonorous and scathing, and a sound that is silly and sinister. Just look at “It’s Just Us Now” and watch the video. The unease is put forth like a perfectly proportioned mess. The video strengthens the song with its coinciding imagery and feeling.