Ep. CXXXV: 'Holiday Greetings' - Birchwood Chorale

Strap yourself in for another spin around ye olde turntable, gang. . .

Album Title:  Holiday Greetings

Album Artist:  Birchwood Chorale

I'm not entirely sure where this one came from. I have a stack of, like, forty un-reviewed LPs downstairs in my storage room that I pull from every year for new posts on this site of mine, and because of this I never made it out to Radio Wasteland this year - my local record store - to pick up any more. Probably the first time I haven't done so in like six or so years, Jim most likely thinks I'm dead. Anyway, if I had to guess, I'd wager I picked it up from their Dollar Bin at some point int he past, because it was still shrink-wrapped with the price sticker (a whopping 99 cents) still on it.

Brand new, never played, about as Mint as a forty-five year old record can be.

. . . this can't be a good sign.

So kicking things off on Side A on this sum'bitch, I realized that this album cover art was a little misleading. I assumed there'd be a stand-out, female vocalist on this release. Some chick who, as the picture indicates, enjoys her Holidays with some LCD in her egg nog. Not so much the case, though - I should've caught the 'Chorale' at first glance and realized then that it was a choir-based album, and not some churchy-type tripping balls on yuletide acid.

We've reviewed a ton of 'chorales' on this blog over the years, and the sound majority of those generally sound like church choirs, landing anywhere on the 'professional' to 'Cousin Frank has a microphone-to-reel set up and for $40 and a case of Schlitz he said he'd record your church group next Thursday at 3pm' scale. This doesn't quite sound like a church choir to me, despite some of the religious carols that are being sung here. No, this is more dramatic, like some 'touring' group that puts on a show at your local civic or arts center, and you go with your significant other for like $10 a ticket and sit around a bunch of other folks who equally were in the same 'Eh, it doesn't sound like an awesome time, but if you're bored we could go and check it out' boat.

That's the sort of show where the vocal arrangements are artsier than they need to be, in order to display the singers' range - which, to be fair, is pretty good here. No doubt these folks can sing, and the recording quality is on point for the time: it's mixed well, no dramatic highs and low that make you spill your drink out of fear or anything like that, and the male and female vocals emerge out of the left and right channels (you would want to listen to this in Mono for sure.) There's no music accompaniment except for a soft piano here that serves more as a grounding agent than anything else, so most of the heavy lifting is done by the chorale.

Not falling into the pitfalls of the more-common-than-it-should-be-practice of 'Holiday Originals,' the folks who laid out this track list crammed it full of Holiday staples. This make sense, because if you were going to your local civic center to watch this three-hour choir concert (because you're old now and that's what passes as weekend entertainment at this stage in your life) and you didn't recognize any of the songs, you'd probably have a long, awkward ride home afterwards. And you'd be sleeping on the couch.

You could probably listen to one song off this record and be like, "Okay, I get it." But after nearly forty-five minutes, or seven hours, or however damn long this album is, I feel a little like I'm hallucinating myself. Has this been the same song the entire time? Is the five-headed wreath harpy on the album cover merging into a singular, yuletide Beelzebub? After so much dramatic singing to little-to-no music - often times dialed up to 11, in like John Williams' 'Duel of the Fates' territory,' you feel your brain melting down the back of your shirt.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I think I'll just skip the acid and just stick to whiskey in my egg nog this Holiday Season, thank you very much. I'm too old for a long, strange trip like this.

VERDICT:  5/10 - Meh (Decent singing, as far as chorales go, but one can only take sooo much of this kind of art form in one sitting before questioning the reality of everything around them. And personally, I don't like it when the colors on my walls start speaking to me. . .)

- SHELVED -

- Brian 

Ep. CXXXIII: 'The Joyful Season' - Jo Stafford

 Who's ready for some more yuletide, audio snobbery? Anyone?

Album Title:  The Joyful Season

Album Artist:  The Voices of Jo Stafford

This one might be a bit of a let-down, guys. So, like practically every other album reviewed this year, I snatched up yet another dollar bin treasure from Radio Wasteland based on the album artwork. Jo Stafford has one of those looks that, to me, screams 'boring church lady music.' The beehive haircut and disapproving look leads one to believe that this lady was probably used to wielding the 'N-Word' around like a battle ax back in the day. 

Because God forbid those people use the same sidewalk as her children.

Here's the shtick with this album: 'The Voices of Jo Stafford.' At first I wasn't sure what the hell this meant, like were they a group of singers who were forced to bear the name of only one, beehive-wearing bitch (who's most likely a racist)? Does she have multiple personalities and each of them get a chance to sing on this Holiday album (because, as terrifying as that would probably be for the studio engineers to record, I bet it'd be pretty awesome to listen to)?

Nothing nearly that cool, I'm afraid. They recorded multiple vocal tracks of the same, stupid lady and then layered them over the music. That's it.

Jo would like to speak to your manager, pronto.

Guys, that isn't anything special. That's called backing vocals, and they're present in nearly every song ever recorded, this isn't some groundbreaking thing you just invented. Folks do it all the time, except most people use other people for backing vocals. 

Jo must have insisted on - nay, demanded - only using her 'angelic voice' on this album. Probably while smoking a cigarette in the studio, hand on her hip, glaring at the black janitor that was taking out the trash in the sound booth.

Because 'they' shouldn't ever be allowed in her presence. Her grandfather probably rode with Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Anyway, can this lady sing? Meh, I guess. She sounds like a middle-aged woman from the '60s singing. A click up from the 'pretty good singer at church' that we've reviewed a hundred times or so on this blog of ours, but nothing impressive enough to commit to memory. She must have been in her 40s when this was recorded, because her voice is relatively low for a female - only decades of being beaten down by life (and maybe a husband, considering it was the '60s), birthing kids, watching blacks get Civil Rights, etc. can do that to a woman's voice.

The saving grace here is that Jo isn't singing a church-y Christmas album at all, which was my initial impression upon adding this one to my stack of Holiday records a month or two ago. No, these are all secular Holiday favorites that everyone knows the lyrics to - just check out the track listing. This alone adds a point or two in Jo's favor, because had this been a set of overly-religious, Christmas music (WHY was that so popular sixty years ago?), or a collection of god-awful 'original' Christmas songs (there's thousands of Holiday favorites in the Public Domain, guys - go nuts), this would have been a shit-show.

From Our House to Yours. Racistly.

Jo can sing well enough, like I said, and the arrangements themselves are decent for the time period. It's a chill album, there's no upbeat music, no 'swing' to be found here (despite the fact I'm pretty sure this was released in the '60s.) No, Jo likes to keep it slow and low, as if she's singing to herself while slowly, stumbling up the stairs of her home late at night after she passed out drunk on a living room couch in front of her black-and-white, 14" television set.

So again, kinda disappointed because I was hoping to find something comically bad with this one, and instead I just got a half-way competent - but ultimately boring - Holiday album from some racist Karen from the '60s.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (Was the 'beehive' haircut the 'I want to speak to the manager' haircut of the 1960's? 'Cause I'm assuming it was.)

- SHELVED-

- Brian

Ep. CXXII: 'A Christmas to Remember' - Various Artists

Hey there. Let's jump into this one and, well, just see what we can wrap our heads around . .

Album Title:  A Christmas to Remember

Album Artist:  Various Artists

Right off the bat, I should let you guys know that this was one of the more difficult albums I've had to review for the Holidays. I first spotted it at Radio Wasteland in the dusty-as-all-hell Dollar Bin, and right away I thought this was going to be a total crap-fest, considering:

No, that's not The Band - it's The Christmas Boogie Band. Huge difference.

1.)  I didn't recognize a single artist on the track listing on the back of the sleeve, which is rarely a good sign. I mean, how hard is it really to book a C- or D-List artist for a Holiday record? How many absolute train wrecks have we seen over the years featuring abysmal 'talent' in their track listings? These dudes are always clamoring for spots on Christmas compilations like this, that's pretty much all they had once their mainstream careers began to dry up. 

2.)  The cover art is. . . something. You have Santa Claus, flying across a wintery landscape, like he's been known to do - directly in front of the moon like he's in E.T. or some shit. Down below on the ground is a herd of wild horses, watching on in what I can only assume is awe at the passing spectacle. Horses are skittish animals, guys, so this probably freaked them right the f*** out. Seeing a dude repeatedly cracking a whip across the backs of their quadruped cousins (are horses and reindeer distantly related?) as THEY FLY ACROSS THE SKY, IN CLEAR DEFIANCE OF GOD'S WILL.

Clearly whoever whipped this together was high as a damn kite.

But I digress. Let's get back to the point of this whole entry here, folks - let's analyze what this thing actually sounds like. 

Dropping the needle on Side A, we're met with some upbeat Tijuana-ish, South-of-the-Border jazz. As you all well know by now, this is most definitely my jam. I sat up, took notice, and was like, 'Oh damn, we might have a surprise keeper on our hands here!'

Remember this one, gang? Colored vinyl pressing of Christmas Disco for $12?

Then, right on its heels, came something different - a full-blown, Salsoul Orchestra-ish rendition of 'Jingle Bells.' Jarring, sure, considering it was preceded by a completely different sound, but not horrible: both were upbeat, fun instrumentals that one could definitely be entertained by, and they were done well (mixing, arrangement, performance - no complaints.) 

The next track also had some disco elements to it, but featured a male singer delivering some straight-up yacht rock vocals over the funkiness. 2015 Brian would not have cared for this in the slightest, but 2024 Brian, folks, is all here for the Yacht Rock.

I was hoping the trend would continue as Side A progressed, but the ol' bucket of ice water was dashed in my face pretty fast when the next track kicked off. A polka number. Heavy on the organ, no accordion to be found, so that it comes across more as a carnival ride soundtrack than an actual Polish take on Christmas. Definitely cringy, but all of these songs clock in under the 2-minute mark, so I was willing to take a point off and continue on my merry way. Fortunately, the next song is a return to Yacht Rock/Disco territory, which, while not my favorite sort of yuletide genre in the slightest, was at least following a discernible trend.

Magnum P.I. and Slenderman enjoy a sleigh ride on a magical winter's night. 

The last track on Side A, while not horrible, was a country/western instrumental done all on a quartet of guitars. And though out of place here (though the 'place,' by this point in time, is starting to get hard to keep track of), it was a decent little track. No, where everything falls of the rails in major fashion is upon flipping the record over on to Side B. . .

It's a piano-led orchestral number. Slow, serene, and it doesn't sound anything like Christmas music. It's like they pressed two different mini-albums onto one frickin' record. No more upbeat, fun music. No more Tijuana jazz, no more disco, no more yacht rock. Now it's time for introspection.

I had a bad feeling that this album was themed (I've reviewed albums in the past that were released like this), with one side the 'upbeat' Christmas music - the fun carols, etc. - and the other side the 'serious' Christmas music (you know, the 'Reason for the Season' and all that crap.)  

I hate it when albums do this.

Well, they definitely weren't kidding with the 'all the different ways you feel' crap.

My fears were well-founded, as it turns out. The next couple tracks were all filled with the usual, boring church bullshit: lots of organ, lots of hand bells, chimes, harpsichords, harmonicas (courtesy of a group called The Harmonicats - seriously, I guess that's a thing that exists), and - of course - swelling string sections. It was bad enough just as mere instrumental tracks, but by the third or fourth song in, they start rolling out the usual, overly-brash male vocals - because belting out religious carols makes it hit harder, I guess - and the standard, old-lady-warbling that you generally hear at a church service you're dragged to during the Holiday Season.

This whole album sounds like some mid-level record company executive asked his sound engineers what masters were lying around the label's studio that hadn't been previously released on prior Holiday compilations. The poor sound dudes, sighing deeply and shaking their heads, came out with a dusty cardboard box filled with a 13 reels of various songs (from all kinds of frickin' genres.) They informed this douchey superior of theirs that these reels were all that was left, but they were from various sessions over the years and there wasn't any continuity to speak of.

Then the executive, in his infinite wisdom, said 'screw it' and told them to mix them all up and have the shit pressed for release.

If it were possible to rate each side separately, I'd probably rate Side A a 6.5 (not that we condone the '0.5' system around here) and Side B a 4. But, because we are a society with f***ing rules, I can't do that, and as such, will be slapping one, big rating on the entire album as a whole.  And I'm not happy about it. At all.

VERDICT:  5/10 - Meh  (Almost good, but damn - this album does to 'compilations' what Michael Bay did to Transformers. It's so random that I want to prescribe it ADHD meds and get it in to therapy.)

- SHELVED-

- Brian

Ep. XCII: 'White Christmas' - Dennis Day Orchestra & Choir

Boys and girls of all ages, I present to you now the return of America's Greatest Yuletide Event:

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey.

By now, as we come into my eighth 'season' of documenting this is, you should all know how this works, but in case you need a refresher of this, one of my all-time favorite Holiday traditions, here's a run-down.

Since I first started collecting vinyl, back in 2005, I've gotten into the habit of hauling out all of my Christmas vinyl at the start of the Holiday Pre-Season (now-ish, mid-November) and stacking it up in 'staging' area.  Then, over the course of the next month and a half, I methodically listen to every, single album, scrutinizing the holy hell out of it.  The good ones stay in rotation, and are played repeatedly throughout the year.  The okay ones are put aside for future use, but lose their spot in the playlist for the rest of the season.  The bad ones are ridiculed to shreds and donated to the nearest thrift store at the earliest possible convenience.

And then I go through the entire process all over again the following year, armed with a new stack of Christmas vinyl to burn through.

Now, as this is the first installment in this year's season of vinyl reviewin', I'll once again direct your attention to the cherished rating scale we use around these parts:

10 - . . . And Out Come the Wolves (a symbol of perfection, and arguably one of the greatest albums made in the last thirty years)

9 - Cowabunga! (if it makes you want to shout like a Ninja Turtle, you know it's good.)

8 - Awesome (worthy of repeated spins during the Holidays)

7 - Pretty Rad (generally, in order for an album of mine to stay in Holiday Season Rotation, it needs to be rated '7' and up.)

6 - Decent (once and awhile a '6' makes it into constant rotation, but only if it satisfies a previously-vacant Holiday music niche.  These albums almost always get 'Shelved':  I hold on to them - for the time being - but they lose turntable time for the duration of the Season.)

5 - Meh  (anything below this point is almost always put into my annual 'Donate to Goodwill' pile)

4 - Borophyll (there may be some redeeming qualities here that might make albums at this score appeal to some people, but definitely not Yours Truly.)

3 - Seriously? (comically bad, if you will.)

2 - Reality TV (there's only one thing shittier than Reality TV in my opinion, and that is. . .)

1 - Ohio (the Ninth Circle of Hell)

Good.  Now that everyone's been refreshed with how shit works around here, let's just go ahead and get started, shall we. . .

Album Title:  White Christmas

Album Artist:  Dennis Day Orchestra & Choir

I recently went into Radio Wasteland after a hiatus of nearly 10 months.  That's a long period of time, but one that was forced upon me by the fact that I've almost run out of record shelving for new albums, and, more importantly, the cost of vinyl over the last year has gone up astronomically.  

I, for one, refuse to spend $30 on a brand new LP. . . but that's a tale for another time, let's focus on Christmas jams this evening.  

Anyway, the whole reason I finally returned to my favorite record store was to get my grubby mitts on their collection of God-awful, Dollar Bin Holiday albums before society started hunting for Christmas music.  Jim, the owner of the store, usually makes a social media post towards the beginning of November advertising all the store's new and vintage Christmas releases, and I wanted to beat the rush this year.

Mission accomplished.

I walked out of his store with about 24 albums - which you'll have to suffer through over the course of the next couple years, I'm afraid - and this gem right here was among them.  I had already reviewed a good chunk of the artists I came across while digging through the Dollar Bin - many have had their moment in the spotlight on this Great Christmas Record Odyssey of ours - but I've never heard of this guy before.

Dennis Day.

At first glance, he looks like a pleasant, Burl Ives-ish sorta guy.  Jolly enough, but you know just by looking at him that he enjoys a whiskey and an off-color joke about 'an Oriental.'  I think it's the eyes - he definitely gives off vibes like he honestly wants to wish you a Merry Christmas, but if you wanna run your mouth like an asshole he has no qualms with putting his fist in it.  Dude probably served in a war (based on the dated packaging, I'm guessing it was The Big One), chain-smoked whatever he could get his hairy-knuckled hands on, and has a history of spousal abuse.

Still, the guy went out of his way to grab himself a brace of orphans for this picture.  The boy clearly doesn't mind sitting on Dennis' lap, but the girl doesn't seem thrilled with it.

Where the f*** is Dennis' hands?

Anyway, hokey packaging aside, this is a pretty bland affair from start to finish.  I was honestly hoping for something more comically bad than what we ended up with here:  Dennis can sorta sing, and the arrangements aren't terrible, per se (definitely heavy on the church organs, but the sound levels are at least mixed well.)  There's a choir doing background vocals, and they're subtle enough that you can never really tell if it's kids or women singing.  All in all, the non-religious songs on this album come across like just about anything else you'd hear coming out of the 1940s/50s, and the pipe organ-heavy, religious carols sound like they were performed during a church service.  Bland as beige paint and just as forgettable.

If anything, the most eyebrow-raising thing on this entire album is Dennis' voice - it does not match his appearance at all.  You'd think a dude looking like this would have a more booming or gruff voice, but he has this higher-pitched, softer voice (in that nasally, 1940s style, of course.)  While he can carry a tune without drawing anyone's ire, it wasn't expected and I'm kinda let down that we missed out on an opportunity for some classic, good ol' fashioned ridiculing.

Oh well, maybe next time.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (Nothing overly terrible here, and I'm sure this could appeal to some folks, but the entire affair is bland and lacks any kind of redeeming qualities for Yours Truly.  You hurt my feelings, Dennis.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

Ep. LXVIII: 'Shatner Claus: The Christmas Album' - William Shatner

 Dear God, who's ready for a weird-ass Christmas record. . .

Album Title:  Shatner Claus: The Christmas Album

Album Artist:  William Shatner

You know folks, I hate to say it, but I went out of my way to purchase this album.  I really, really did.

This popped up on Amazon while I was browsing for Holiday vinyl a few years ago, and, curious, I clicked on it.  I had initially figured this was going to be a hokey Shatner album (the guy's definitely made a few), featuring that overly-dramatic delivery in a jarring cadence that's his signature staple, and I had every intention of closing the tab on it and never clicking on the item listing again.

But then I took a gander at the track listing:

I hadn't been expecting this, and was intrigued.  So, I added it to an Amazon list and waited for the price to drop.  A year or so passed, and sadly the album never dipped below $29, which, to me, is far too much to be spending on a single-disc release unless it's some limited edition release.  Fast-forward to a month or so ago, while I was snooping for Holiday vinyl in Radio Wasteland, and I not only came across this LP for $24, but it was also a limited edition green-vinyl pressing.

Christmas was saved.

So, let's talk about the actual tracks on this here record for a bit.  This is kinda what you'd expect from a William Shatner album:  his trademark delivery is on full-blast throughout this album, and if you hate the dramatic Shatner thing (which most of us do), just close this tab and go about your day.  

Be aware, however, that some of these songs, aren't half bad - there's a couple on here that are pretty decent.  It's almost like the songs themselves were recorded in studios entirely separate from Captain Kirk, and then, once they were finished, they just wheeled him on in (he's so old I'm just going off on a limb here and assuming he's in a wheelchair now) and had him talk/sing over the existing songs.

Seriously, this whole album definitely comes across as a confused old man, shuffling to an fro among a recording studio, and every time the sound mixer guy starts playing a new song, Shatner is led up to a microphone to just babble about whatever's on his mind.  Sometimes - and, I really have to stress here, sometimes - he makes a weak attempt at singing along with this song.  Most of the time, however, he's just spurting words into a microphone, that, honestly, can be about anything.

The arrangements on here vary from pretty straight-forward, pretty awesome, Holiday anthems ('Jingle Bells,' featuring the legendary Henry Rollins of Black Flag) to completely bizarre bits of spoken-word weirdness ('Twas the Night Before Christmas.')  And a little of everything in between.

Now, I will be completely honest with you, folks:  this one is not for everyone.  Today, while reviewing this album, Kris was like, "What is this?"  She was not a fan, nor would most folk be, I assume.  But me?  I was raised on the 1989 classic Dr. Demento Presents the Greatest Christmas Novelty CD of All Time.  

For those of you unfamiliar with Dr. Demento, he's a radio personality that threw his name behind a collection of nostalgic, Holiday comedy songs from the '60s to late '80s, featuring heavyweights like Allan Sherman, Spike Jones, Cheech and Chong, Bob and Doug Mackenzie, etc.  It's a ridiculous collection of Christmas songs, and by all rationale they shouldn't be good.  'Nuttin' for Christmas,' 'Santa Claus and His Old Lady,'  - you get the idea.  But despite their low-brow cheesiness, they were hilarious to a ten-year-old kid, who considered them 'edgy' and unlike the Mannheim Steamroller bullshit that was eating up the airwaves at the time.  And now that I'm adult, those songs make it on to my playlists because I can appreciate the point of their humor, despite the cheesy delivery. 

So, does a little over-exaggerated, dramatic Shatner belting out a Christmas album in his late eighties cause me to hipsterly scoff this into the 'Shelved' pile of my Holiday vinyl?

Hell No.  Nobody puts Captain Kirk in the Corner.

VERDICT:  7/10 - Pretty Rad (A comedy classic that may someday see some of its tracks end up on a Dr. Demento-ish Christmas Novelty compilation.)

- REMAINS IN CIRCULATION -

- Brian

Ep. LXIII: 'Music of the Medieval Court and Countryside' - New York Pro Musica

Jesus Christ.  I have a weird one today, folks.

Album Title:  Music of the Medieval Court and Countryside (for the Christmas Season)

Album Artist:  New York Pro Musica

So I was in Radio Wasteland a couple days ago, selling back some vinyl and perusing their Holiday selection (half- looking for some awesome new additions to my Christmas vinyl collection, half- looking for records so God-awful that they'd be fun to review in this Odyssey of mine), and I stumbled across this Decca selection for $5.  For being so old (1952), it was in NM/NM condition, looking as if it had never been played (sounds like it, too), and it's one of those albums that includes a frickin' 20-page book - so commonly found in classical music or opera LPs - that give you a history of each and every track on the record.

I'm a big fan of that.

To summarize said included literature, this selection of musicians and singers present traditional folk and religious music from the 12th to 17th centuries, commonly played in the courts of the ruling classes and in cathedrals across Western Europe.  Check it out:

It's too bad more albums don't have big, 30-page mini-book inserts like this - I feel like that's a missed opportunity.  Like, not just liner notes, but full backstories of how albums came together.  Wouldn't that be awesome?

This album sounds exactly like I thought it would, honestly - the kind of music you'd expect to hear while waltzing into a Renaissance Faire.  Or, perhaps, while waiting for a Loading screen in a Sid Meier's Civilization game.  To call it 'Christmas'-y is definitely a stretch, but these guys are definitely representing themselves accurately when they refer to this offering as 'Medieval Court' music.  If you've ever seen a movie set in the Middle Ages, and there's been a scene where there's a feast of some kind, in like the Great Hall of a castle, then you've heard arrangements like the instrumentals found on this album.

People couldn't draw for shit in the Middle Ages.

Picture it, folks.  A portly king, nobly drunk, red-faced and laughing his ass off, sloshing around a golden goblet of wine at the end of a long table.  Probably sloshing it accidentally over his visibly-annoyed and pious-as-f*** queen (who obviously sports a resting bitch face.)  Bearded nobles flank them on either side, some look drunk and merry, others dark and probably up to no good.  Courtiers, hangers-on, and ladies-in-waiting move about the feast, jockeying for position among the tables, all the while servants bustle to and fro, spilling shit.  Hunting dogs wrestle for bones on the stone floor, roaring fires illuminate the banner-covered walls, while bored guards standing about the perimeter, leaning on spears. 

You see where I'm going with this.

I'd say that aforementioned scene adds up to half the music on this album sounds like what you'd expect to hear.  These festive, instrumental numbers from a bygone era are solid tracks, and I can't find fault in them.  Do they truly sound Christmas-y in nature?  Eh, I guess if 'Good King Wenceslas' was the hit song from an obscure One Hit Wonder, this music could be the rest of said One Hit Wonder's catalog.  It sorta sounds the same, but it's definitely not of the same calibre as their hit single.

(And just so we're clear, here:  'Good King Wenceslas' does not appear on this album.)

Some stylish folk threw down on this album. . .

Now, the other half of these tracks are vocal arrangements - sometimes with just the vocals alone, and sometimes with an instrument or two adding accents here or there.  Instead of at a feast, these are tracks more commonly found whilst strolling through a gothic cathedral.  Now, maybe these guys are singing about Christmas - it's totally possible - but since I don't speak frickin' Latin, we're never gonna know.  This doesn't bother me too much, though; I mean, if these vocalists were singing in anything but Latin (say, English, if you will), that'd be ridiculously jarring, don't you think?

I mean, if you're traveling back in time to the Middle Ages, and happen to find yourself listening to an assortment of monks singing solemnly about what we can all assume is religious stuff, and they were NOT singing in Latin. . . well, if I were you I'd get the hell out of their real fast.  Latin is kinda their jam - to sing anything else would probably get them burned at the stake for heresy or something.

There ya go.

Anyway, in summary, this is pretty interesting record, and it's a unique addition to my collection - totally glad I stumbled upon it this year.  That being said, it's not something I imagine I'll listen to as frequently as some of the other ones in my Holiday collection.  Alas, had they only upped the Yule a bit on this one. . .

. . . and also alas, I kinda wish I would've written this entire blog entry in Ye Olde English, now that I think about it.  Son of a bitch. . .

VERDICT:  6/10 - Decent (This would have definitely been a strong '7,' but this is, after all, a Holiday music series, and I have to rate it accordingly.  I'm shelving it for this year, but it very well may end up in circulation in coming years.) 

- SHELVED -

- Brian