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snowywolfowl"We Wish you a Metal Christmas and a Headbanging New Year"
That is the question of the night after listening to an album of Christmas carols being covered by various heavy metal musicians. Perhaps not surprisingly my answer is "Not always".
There are a few good songs here that work fairly well, with "We wish you a merry Christmas" and "Auld Lang Syne" being perhaps the easiest tunes to arrange for a loud and lively rendition. Since neither song is really supposed to be sung quietly anyway the typical metal tricks of going soft then loud work well with the material. In a similar vein "Run, Run Rudolph" works out ok as well, although the choice of having Lemmy, Billy Gibbons, and Dave Grohl cover it in a power trio doesn't create an overly original sounding version. If you wanted to know what a carol sing with Motorhead would sound like, well here it is.
It's when the artists stretch the material a bit that the interesting results start to happen, with a wide difference in results. While the producers hit a solid home run with the Alice Cooper sung "Santa Claws is Coming to Town" the Ronnie James Dio sung "God Rest Ye Gentlemen" is a number one either loves or hates. While the late great Heavy Metal Hobbit has the vocal dexterity to easily slither around the melody the results, especially when combined with Tony Iommi's guitar work, gives one a sense that this is the last Christmas one is ever going to see. Of course considering the entire album is dedicated to the late vocalist perhaps that was intentional, but I can't help but think the approach makes it vulnerable to charges of unintentional parody, especially since Spinal Tap's "Christmas with the Devil" mined this idea of the devil enjoying Christmas ages ago.
While the Dio/Iommi led number will probably divide the camp a bit the album's What the F**** moment is reserved for the decision to cover "Silent Night". While "Silent Night" is not in itself uncoverable (there have been some great metal songs written in 3/4 time) the decision to do so with death grunt vocals and blast beats leaves me both shaking my head and hoping that Joseph and Mary can find a good therapist for Baby Jesus after their move to Egypt. After listening to that "lullaby" they are going to need one.
On a whole the album has some surprisingly well done moments ("Deck the Halls", "O Christmas Tree") and some oddly flat ones ("Grandma got run over by a reindeer", "Santa Claus is Back in Town"). If you are a huge fan of the genre and the artists appearing, then it might be worth it but for the casual listener, or anyone looking for a solid disc of Christmas classics there are better options out there.
