I wasn’t particularly excited about Reign of Terror in the months leading up to its release. Treats, Sleigh Bells’ first album, was glorious, far and away my favorite release of 2010. It was energetic and innovative, fabulously fresh, and brilliantly brash.

But any enthusiasm I had for a follow-up was crushed after the first single from Reign of Terror was released last month. That single, “Comeback Kid,” was only so-so; bloated and weightier than anything on Treats, it sounded like a band resting on its laurels and, even worse, a now-popular band with far too much money on their hands. So no, I wasn’t holding my breath for the rest. I had already mentally mapped Sleigh Bells’ future trajectory—mediocre second album, ridiculous genre-bending experiment of a third (my guess was folk-pop meets old school hip-hop), and then Sleigh Bells would quietly fall off the face of the earth.

Thank god I was wrong.

My first hint that I was hasty in calling Sleigh Bells down for the count arrived last Sunday when I watched the video of their performances on “Saturday Night Live.” They performed the new track “End of the Line,” as well as the previously disappointing “Comeback Kid.” Singer Alexis Krauss beamed as she danced around the stage, breathing life into a song that, on record, sounds a bit flat. With that performance, I was born again and pledged my loyalty to Sleigh Bells, now and forever. Forever—or until they make a shitty album, that is.

Luckily, today is not that day. Reign of Terror is no Treats, but what sophomore release ever matches the glory of a heavily hyped debut? Opener “True Shred Guitar” is a completely superfluous intro: it begins with the roar of an adoring audience being egged on by Krauss, who shouts profundities such as “Rock on!” and “Here we fucking go!”

It’s a rocky start to the album, but luckily it’s uphill from here. “Born to Lose” is the second track, and in my mind, the true opener. It’s classic Sleigh Bells—Derek Miller’s heavy metal guitar, Krauss’s little-girl vocals and cheerleader-style chants. Still, it doesn’t quite measure up to the better tracks from Treats. The screaming and applauding crowd from “True Shred Guitar” was spelling out one of the album’s most disappointing truisms—on “Reign of Terror,” Miller and Krauss are going arena rock. Every track is dipped in moneyed expansiveness, mostly for the worst. A layer of haze has been stripped from their signature sound, and for the first time, Krauss’s lyrics are intelligible. Again, this new development is for the worse—her lyrics read like the diary of a precociously depressed eighth grader, and gems like “No one loves you/Up above you/No one hears you/No one sees you” are par for the course.

If that’s the bad news, it’s outweighed by the good. They’re still the Sleigh Bells we fell in love with two years ago, and tracks like “Crush” and “Demons” deliver the dance party we’re looking for. The stand-out song is “End of the Line.” It’s a ballad of the simplest kind, and stripped of Sleigh Bells’ characteristic bursts of noise, it could have easily topped the pop charts in 1988. It could have gone so wrong, but somehow they pull it off, and “End of the Line” isn’t a disaster, but a revelation. It’s the one track on the album that cements my faith in Sleigh Bells.

They may make missteps, but they take risks that more than make up for any mistakes. Sleigh Bells is really just two people, a few effects pedals, and a whirlwind of noise. They’ve got pluck, and what’s not to love about that?