I was three miles into an easy run along the Lakefront when "Holly" came on and I realized I'd been running to a live show I'd missed two years ago. Not missed because I didn't know about it—missed because I was reorganizing the indie rock section alphabetically by label instead of chronologically by release date, which is obviously the correct way, and by the time I finished it was 10 PM on a Tuesday and I'd convinced myself I was too tired for a show at Metro.
The thing about Sleigh Bells is they shouldn't work at 119 BPM. That's recovery pace. That's easy run tempo. That's the speed where you're supposed to be contemplating your life choices, not getting your face melted by Derek Miller's guitar and Alexis Krauss screaming cheerleader chants over what sounds like a Marshall stack falling down a staircase. But here's what I figured out somewhere around "Bitter Rivals": tempo is a lie. What matters is density. What matters is how much sound you can pack into four minutes without leaving any room for doubt.
This setlist—because that's what this is, the actual Metro show from August 5, 2022, plus some bonus tracks to stretch it past an hour—moves through the band's entire catalog like it's telling you their story in real time. You start with "Holly" from *Jessica Rabbit* (2016), their weirdest and most underrated record, the one where they tried to figure out what Sleigh Bells sounds like when it stops trying to sound like Sleigh Bells. Then "And Saints" and "Blue Trash Mattress Fire" pull you back to *Bitter Rivals* (2013), the record where they admitted they were a pop band and dared you to have a problem with it.
"Crown On The Ground" hits at track five and suddenly you're back in 2010, back to *Treats*, back to the moment when Mom+Pop released the most confrontational debut album of the decade and nobody knew what to do with it. I had a kid in the store last month discover "Crown On The Ground" for the first time and I watched him try to process guitar that distorted over beats that clean. He asked me what genre it was. I told him it was Brooklyn, 2010, which is as specific as I can get.
The middle stretch—"A/B Machines," "Infinity Guitars," "Riot Rhythm"—is pure *Treats* worship, the songs that made them impossible to ignore. Then "Rill Rill" arrives like a trapdoor. It's the same album, the same guitar tone, the same Alexis Krauss vocal, but suddenly there's melody you can hum and a Funkadelic sample and you realize Sleigh Bells always knew exactly what they were doing. They weren't making noise for noise's sake. They were making pop music for people who'd been lied to by pop music.
By the time you hit "Road to Hell" at track eleven, you're deep into *Texis* (2021), their most recent record, the one where they finally figured out how to write songs about getting older without losing the plot. "Demons" and "Justine Go Genesis" follow, and I'll tell you something: *Texis* is the album where Sleigh Bells became a band I respect instead of a band I just turn up loud. They didn't mellow. They got sharper. There's a difference.
"Tennessee Tips" and "SWEET75" pull from *Kid Kruschev* (2017), the record nobody talks about but everyone should, and then "Locust Laced" yanks you back to *Bitter Rivals* one more time before the three-song closer. "Rule Number One," "I Can Only Stare," "Wanna Start A Band?"—all *Texis*, all proof that Sleigh Bells in 2021 had more to say than Sleigh Bells in 2010, even if the guitars are slightly quieter.
Here's what this playlist taught me: 119 BPM at high density is faster than 160 BPM with empty space. Running to this setlist feels like running faster than you are. Your legs match the tempo, but your brain matches the intensity, and somewhere around mile four those two things stop being the same thing. Which is exactly what a live show is supposed to do. You stand still but you move. You don't dance but you can't stop moving.
I didn't make it to the Metro show in 2022. But I ran this setlist twice last week, and now I've been to that show in a way that matters more than being there. Because what really matters is what you like, not where you were when you liked it.
