Sleigh Bells
Bunky Becky Birthday Boy



Release Date: 04/11/2025 | Tracklist

Review Summary: your pop metal dream came true

Few acts take half as much glee as Sleigh Bells in erasing the boundary between good and bad taste. How? Maybe their lurid take on pop maximalism goes a little hard on aesthetic carnage (jagged metal guitars x a fruit machine's worth of shiny synth tones x roof-raising holler x nifty industrial flourishes), maybe their shiteating grin takes indecent relish flashing a full set of rotten cavities, and maybe Alexis Krauss' is very happy for the weight of her vocals to rest on fractious subject matter (Even looking real bad, I feel good / When I'm feeling so sad, I feel good) — but the bottom line is that the whole package benefits from such ruthlessly dialled-in songwriting and dispenses great hooks so freely that it's a sod's game to keep track of where tongue meets cheek or pathos gives way to quirk. Uh huh!

Krauss and guitarist-producer Derek Miller have air-quotes gottit, and their latest record Bunky Becky Birthday Boy (fucking right) takes on their brief with an extra dose of sunshine. This thing throws itself into any number of saccharine earworms ("Roxette Ric") and goonish singalongs ("Badly"), its brash arena chords a good match for some of the duo's most energising material to date. It's apt that the album highlight "This Summer" is also the most unapologetically poppy, its breathless pacing a runway for one electric zinger after another: no frills big stupid ecstasy, pop perfection, consume it, explode, repeat, mmm…! Bar the oddly portentous lyric recognise patterns / some of this matters (so affirmative, so insecure!), there isn't a single thrill on this track that you won't have encountered in some form before; Sleigh Bells' steadfast conviction and volatile levels of gratification practically makes a joke of this. No complications.

The same, unfortunately, does not go for the whole album: an awkward proportion of these tracks seem set on retreading the peaks of the band's 2021 juggernaut Texis without offering the same breadth or impact. "Life Was Real"'s underwhelming reboot of "True Seekers" is the most glaring example here, but the likes of "Real Special Cool Thing" and "Can I Scream" are all too happy to dip into well-worn hooks and cadences, and don't stick around long enough to lay down their own distinctions. The album's relatively narrow focus does it few favours here; its reluctance to experiment outside of sparkly, quickfire bangers inadvertently spotlights how the appeal of its weaker cuts is directly interchangeable with that of the highlights. The one true showstopper only furthers this impression: "Hi Someday"'s sudden foray into electro-industrial suspense comes as such a welcome shift of gears in the album's final stretch that the rearview mirror immediately casts an unkindly tint over the previous tracks' sugar crimes.

The relatively earnest approach of closer "Pulse Drips Quiet" leaves a similar aftertaste, paring back the hook barrage and leaning into desperation for its rousing chorus. It's a strong track on its own terms, but ratcheting the pathos so far up at the very end of such a resolutely lightweight tracklist suggests a greater emotional impact that Bunky Becky Birthday Boy has long since declined to deliver. Does it sell itself short as such? One hundo, but at the end of the day no one is playing pig squeals over handclaps and sounding half so fleet for it. Party to this party album or, like, fucking don't. Not a hard choice.




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user ratings (50)
3.3
great
other reviews of this album
gryndstone (4)
Another album, another wrecking ball to pop music...



Comments:Add a Comment 
JohnnyoftheWell
Staff Reviewer
April 7th 2025


63824 Comments

Album Rating: 3.6

wanted to rate this higher because it's still fun as hell + extremely replayable, but it's just missing that extra impact that Texis (still one of the decade's premier pop records!?) dished out in spades

also wanted to rate it higher to avoid any misconception that it's anything less than vastly preferable to 99% of anglosphere albums that have the words 'pop metal' thrown at them in earnest

o well

Odal
Staff Reviewer
April 7th 2025


2975 Comments

Album Rating: 3.7

Album rules.



It's kind of a shame that Sleigh Bells have seemingly lost any bit of hype they once had because I think BBBB and Texis are some of their best work, and they pull off this almost proto-hyper pop hodge podge thing so much better than most of the works they've inspired

gryndstone
April 8th 2025


2915 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off

Damn it, thats the line i was going to use for a summary. Agreed on the proto hyper-pop deal. I think they were following that ethos from the very start, but it rears its head so hard from Jessica Rabbit on



dedex
Staff Reviewer
April 8th 2025


12939 Comments

Album Rating: 3.7 | Sound Off

forgot this came out, will jam soon. am ready for sweetness

Gyromania
April 8th 2025


38083 Comments


BNM with the highest staff rating being 3.7 0_o

Demon of the Fall
April 8th 2025


37905 Comments


dedex is evidently from the future, I knew it!

I quite liked Texis but didn't stick with it very long for some reason, maybe I will revisit in preparation

rabidfish
April 8th 2025


8848 Comments


Texis was very refreshing. Haven't jammed any of the singles from this, so I'm going in blind.

JohnnyoftheWell
Staff Reviewer
April 8th 2025


63824 Comments

Album Rating: 3.6

this has got me revisiting parts of Texis i hadn't hit in a while and appreciating how much of a steely edge that album brought alongside the pop. respect the way this one by and large opts to do away with it, but just a little more depth would have gone a long way

Christbait
April 8th 2025


1037 Comments


Haven't bothered with them since Treats (which was admittedly an excellent album). Is this more poppy and less noise than that?

Odal
Staff Reviewer
April 8th 2025


2975 Comments

Album Rating: 3.7

This one is more of a zany, metal-pop sugar rush than Treats' noisy assault

gryndstone
April 8th 2025


2915 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off

A little more depth would have gone a long way [2]



yeah there's not a lot to chew on here is my main gripe, i do find myself skipping over a good bit of the album and replaying the same 20 minutes, but again, that's not a lot

JohnnyoftheWell
Staff Reviewer
April 8th 2025


63824 Comments

Album Rating: 3.6

fr lol, Roxette Ric/This Summer -> Blasted Shadow -> last two is the roadmap for me (though the opener is always welcome), but still, that's such a fun circuit that it's hard to get too down over it

Odal
Staff Reviewer
April 8th 2025


2975 Comments

Album Rating: 3.7

Gave it another run through this morning with coffee and it's a helluva way to start the day.



Definitely isn't like an especially awesome album or anything, but this will be in my summer rotation for sure

DoofDoof
April 8th 2025


16768 Comments

Album Rating: 3.0

Thought this was a lot more hit and miss than Texis first go but shalt return and hopefully bump

yanagimary
April 9th 2025


65 Comments

Album Rating: 3.5

This is fun, but very much the perfect 3.5 album

rabidfish
April 9th 2025


8848 Comments


Eh
It's not really that interesting, tbh

kkarron
April 10th 2025


1766 Comments


Oh there's a new one out? Really liked Texis, defo gon spin this even if it is a 3.5.

DoofDoof
April 10th 2025


16768 Comments

Album Rating: 3.0

GFOTY released the best Sleigh Bells tune this year (‘GRWM (eww)’)

JeetJeet
April 11th 2025


12616 Comments


wish I could inject Hi Someday into my veins

klauswagon
April 11th 2025


42 Comments


Good delirious fun!



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