Reign of Terror June 1793 and the end of July 1794, there were 16,594 official death sentences in France, of which 2,639 were in Paris. There was a sense of emergency among leading politicians in France in the summer of 1793 between the widespread civil war and counter-revolution. Bertrand Barère exclaimed on 5 September 1793 in the Convention: "Let's make terror the order of the day!" They were determined to avoid street violence such as the September Massacres of 1792 by taking violence into their own hands as an instrument of government. Robespierre in February 1794 in a speech explained the necessity of
Reign of Terror (Sleigh Bells album) huge, and a press release described it as "the sonic equivalent of a beautiful shotgun to the head." Lyrically, "Reign of Terror" features songs that are emotionally heavy, differing from the songs on "Treats" which were described as "party music" by Miller. Sleigh Bells were rushed during the production of "Treats" and were unable to finish recording all of the songs they had written before they had to leave the studio to perform at scheduled tour dates. Not wanting to repeat this mistake, the duo set aside a lot of time in 2011 to record and produce "Reign of Terror".