If you had an iTunes account and a beating heart in 2010, chances are you loved, hated and/or danced your heart out to ‘Rill Rill’ by Sleigh Bells. Who didn’t love that jam? Sure, everyone and their local boutique was over-saturated with the track by the time Gossip Girl featured it on a 4th season episode. But there was something charming, accessible and enviably cool about the tune – like that girl you know whose chignon is always just-so, and pulls off orange lipstick with panache – while yours always ends up on your teeth.

I digress. The success of ‘Rill Rill’, and the album that it came from, Treats, was a joint force of the refreshingly young, yet non-self indulgent lyrics (“wonder what your boyfriend thinks about your braces”, “ring, ring, call them up / tell them ’bout the new trends”), the definitively upbeat and easygoing vibe (notably, during the rebirth of sad-bastard indie, à la Bon Iver and The National), but also the fact that the album was simply good, clean fun. The recipe of a band like Sleigh Bells is relatively straightforward. Solid and syrupy vocals, heavy but listener-friendly riffs and a considerable amount of talent, clout and experience. Rinse, repeat, and you’re ready to quit your day job. It’s neither an easy nor an enviable task, yet Sleigh Bells pulls it all off in a way that’s (gasp!) inventive.

Today saw the band’s sophomore release, Reign of Terror, and I’m pretty happy, if unsurprised, to report that it doesn’t suck. In fact, it’s an inspiring new step for a band that could’ve continued to ride the coat tails of the predecessor album’s fame – but instead chose to polish, reinvent and ground their already pretty established base. It’s a smarter sound, a stronger sound – one with more emotional depth than one might expect from the kind of band they work out (or “work out”) to. Maybe I’m caught into another one of my famous bouts of nostalgia (even the title of the album makes me think of high school. Ha ha. No, but seriously), but there’s something about the 90s pop-meets-grunge vibe to Reign of Terror that has me believing that I’ll be listening to, and maybe even lamenting along with, this album for years to come. In an era where it’s easy to throw out last year’s album with last year’s trend, Sleigh Bells has the kind of longevity that colour blocking only dreams of.

Highlights on the album include a new take on the Shangri-Las 1964 ‘Leader of the Pack’ (vroom, vroom) and a track called ‘Comeback Kid’, which is really heavy (read: layered) and really light (read: graceful) at the same time. While the bass and drums are gritty – think Dum Dum Girls – the vocals are pop, pure and simple. And there ain’t nothing wrong with that. In ‘Born to Lose’, vocalist Alexis Krauss evokes early Metric, but the background is hectic, complex, raw. This isn’t the bubblegum alt-rock of eras past, either; instead the album handles overarching themes of suicide and grief in tracks like ‘You Lost Me’ (“I don’t want you to see me this way / but I wait and die”) and complex, close relationships in ‘Road to Hell’ (“Don’t run away from me, baby / just go away for me, baby”). It’s heartfelt, unpretentious, consistent and addictive. And that, my friends, is what makes great rock and roll.

Turn ‘Born to Lose’ all the way up, and then go buy the album here.