Labels: indiecater
Review by: MH
The reason I chose this one from the review list is that I’ve had a torrid time at work lately. If England getting an absolute slaughtering in the first Ashes test in Brisbane (where I now live) wasn’t enough, on November 29th my colleagues decided that it wasn’t too early to plaster the office in Christmas decorations. Since that day, they have been playing youtube playlists of Christmas music all day long. It’s been a tough time lately so I was just hoping and praying that this EP would give me some respite from the choirs singing “Away In A Manger” and “Good King Wenceslas” as well as bloody Bing Crosby and…worse still…Michael Buble who seems to be a heart-throb amongst my colleagues. The one that has really punished my ears the most is the one with the lyric “Simply having a wonderful Christmas time” – that one has pretty much broken me. Also, it’s about 40 degrees outside and I don’t expect to see snow in Brisbane anytime soon. It was a huge relief when The Muppets Christmas Carol got some airtime.
On to this new collection of Christmas songs. Unlike the Christmas compilation I reviewed this time last year there are six songs on here instead of 45, or however many were on that last one. The songs on here are from various folk brought together by Dublin label Indiecater Records. What you get here is indie pop fed through a blender of Christmas tales, chiming bells and the usual themes from this time of year.
Adam and Darcie open proceedings with “Warm And Bright” – it’s quite a sad-sounding track with dreamy female vocals and Christmassy lyrics. Makes a nice change from Crosby. Photo Ops then dish up a particularly Christmas-sounding song which is some quite clean indie and tells some Christmas tales. Ben Hood is up next and plays a straight-up indie track with acoustic guitar and some synth (I think?). It has a big singalong at the end about drinking up together. A more electronica-infused track follows this as Candy Claws play a very Yuletide-y song complete with sleigh-bells and dreamy vocals. Things get a bit upbeat when The Very Most appear from Idaho with a keys-led dancy tune called “Stars And Happiness Forever”. It has a rather disturbing sample of some kid listing what they got for Christmas about halfway through. Spread The Celebration play a track named after themselves. It is an acoustic fingerpicked track with female vocals again and with what sounds like a xylophone to close things off.
Respite? Yes, definitely. Not sure how many times I will revisit this though but thank you all for the distraction. I might even try to get my colleagues to stick this on instead of Buble!