New York

New York:

Sleigh Bells

CITY: Brooklyn
SONGS THAT GOT US: "Tell 'Em," "Infinity Guitars"
MYSPACE ADDRESS: myspace.com/sleighbellsmusic
RECORD LABEL: Mom+Pop/N.E.E.T.

WHY THEM? The Bells' "Crown on the Ground" demo broke last fall (their first show ever was in September), and gleefully knocked all the pieces off the board in the credibility game. Who would have ever admitted that mixing hardcore guitars, Stacy Q club-girl cheerleading, and bunker-busting schoolyard beats — as mixed through a shorted-out laptop — would yield anything close to a hit? Okay, plenty of you still won't. Yes, that's your jock-jam radar going off, and true, that's an iPod plugged in at the back of the stage, and sure, everything they do sounds so dirty and metal it could probably get played and laid at a strip club. Whatever, mom: this band rules. Debut album Treats came out with M.I.A.'s label's blessing this year — and the title track gets remixed as "Meds and Feds" on M.I.A.'s new Maya — but this duo's blown circuits may have just beaten her at her own game.

BONUS BIT! Singer Alexis Krauss was a fourth-grade teacher in New York until she stopped into a restaurant with her mom and was solicited for a project by guitarist Derek Miller, who was waiting on their table.

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