First of all, the album has some good points, yeah. It's probably a 6.5-7/10 for me right now cos I need to be able to blast it to high heaven to properly take it in. And I fully accept that I might turn around in a few days/weeks, hold my hand up and say 'yo, I was wrong. this shit kicks!' I happen to think that's pretty likely as it happens. But what I'm seeing now is one of the most absurd hype bubbles ripe for a bursting. And goddamn if I don't wake up and p4k have given this 9.2 or something nuts. Couple of things then:

1) People say it's an 'amazing summer pop record'. NO IT'S NOT. Fun BBQ-ready drunk pop is Will Smith & Jazzy Jeff doing 'Summertime'. But fair play, for some it's too slick and mainstream so on a weirder/lower-fidelity tip something by Pavement or just stick on Odelay or if you wanna combine fuzz and electronics then hell, Neon Indian are right there.

2) In fact if you want an upbeat feel-good record that mixes cheerleader vocals, beats, guitars, samples, danceability, liberal dollops of sunshine but also, pivotally, HAS AMAZING TUNES: Thunder, Lightning, Strike! C'mon.

3) If people are looking for a Wavves for 2009, Dom seem to have this on lock.

4) M.I.A. is not God (though she is fairly rad). Her word/influence should not be treated as such.

5) You want speaker-breaking fuzzed-out bass hits? Look at grime instrumentals/remixes from '03-06. They do it so much better.

6) As a general annoyance: I think people at the moment afford a lot of critical acclaim to acts that flesh out a handful of good to great 10 second hooks into full albums. So many of these acts are peddling unfinished doodles of tracks; little squiggles of feedback and clatter that somehow merit 9/10s. Some do it real well (No Age holla) but Sleigh Bells, to my mind, sound more like a mix of PENS and the kind of laughable band left to wander through critical no mans land in the year following new rave's decline. Imagine if Sleigh Bells looked like this: http://www.clashmusic.com/files/imagecache/big_node_view/files/hadouken_3.jpg (front two), and had dropped in late '07. People would be laughing their asses off. It's like fucking Lost Penguin or something!

Look, I like them. A fair bit. And I think they'll continue to grow on me and I'll rip through the record a lot as it's short and tasty, and I'll crank it high and it'll be pretty epic and I can viably see it worming its way into my noggin and staying firmly put. But right now the amount of people fawning over Treats so breathlessly is confusing me a tad. Seems like the kind of band people will look back on in a few years and wince and try to forget about it. Like a drunk night out when you were just 18 and you got with a 15-year-old. Sure, it's sloppy daft fun now but the hangover effects will last a whole lot longer.

P.S. I'm really cranky. I think it's time for sleep.