Wiki
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Release Date
14 February 2012
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Length
11 tracks
Reign of Terror is the second studio album by the American noise pop duo Sleigh Bells. The album was released through Mom+Pop on February 21, 2012
The writing process for Reign of Terror began during the touring cycle for Sleigh Bells' debut album Treats in 2010. The song writing for Reign of Terror was a more collaborative effort between group members Derek Miller and Alexis Krauss, as the majority of the songs on Treats were written solely by Miller before Krauss joined the group. Krauss' musical background is primarily in pop music, and her contributions to the album included pop song structures such as bridges, counter-melodies and pre-choruses. In addition to traditional pop music song structures, Reign of Terror also features a more guitar-centered sound. According to Miller, "With Treats it was less clear to me whether Sleigh Bells was going to be a guitar band or if we were going to do more sample-heavy stuff. With this record I had to pick sides. The beats are still important to me, but the guitar won." Sleigh Bells also described the album as being heavy, immense and huge, and a press release described it as "the sonic equivalent of a beautiful shotgun to the head." Lyrically, Reign of Terror features songs that are emotionally heavy, differing from the songs on Treats which were described as "party music" by Miller.
Sleigh Bells were rushed during the production of Treats and were unable to finish recording all of the songs they had written before they had to leave the studio to perform at scheduled tour dates. Not wanting to repeat this mistake, the duo set aside a lot of time in 2011 to record and produce Reign of Terror. Recording began on June 25, 2011 at SMT Studios in Manhattan, New York.The album was produced by Miller and engineered by Shane Stoneback, who also worked with Sleigh Bells on Treats. At SMT, Miller recorded his guitar parts in a reverberation room to achieve a, "massive Def Leppard-influenced guitar sound." Sleigh Bells also recorded a group of their friends stomping and clapping in the bleachers of a high school gym for the song "Crush".
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