Thursday 16 December 2010 17.31 EST
First published on Thursday 16 December 2010 17.31 EST

Contradiction seems to be the foundation on which Brooklyn-based duo Sleigh Bells are built. It's there in their sound, a kind of skewed pop hybrid of pummelling too-loud-in-the-mix guitars, simple, bone-crunching beats and singer Alexis Krauss's sweetly melodic vocals. The fact that Krauss used to sing in the girl group Rubyblue while producer/guitarist Derek E Miller spent his early 20s in hardcore groups such as Poison the Well only adds to the volatile clash of ideas that exists in both Sleigh Bells' music and their band dynamic. It's also there in their image. Their press shots scream moody and menacing, but in person they're disarmingly sweet and seemingly hellbent on undermining any sense of artfullike 'Yeah, I do.' And that was Alexis." Things moved pretty quickly and after Miller played Krauss some instrumental tracks they started recording almost immediately. By January of this year Krauss had quit her job as a teacher to go full-time with the band.

For Miller, his decision to keep working or commit to the band was taken out of his hands by MIA. "A friend of hers played her our demos and she just got in touch with us immediately, sent us an email and then flew to New York, like out of the blue," he says. "She got there on the Saturday and I actually got fired because I didn't give my boss any notice. She just showed up and was like, 'Let's get to work now,'