★★★★★
Punks bloody love Christmas. Maybe it's because of the festive colours - those potent reds, greens and golds reminiscent of the tartan bondage trousers on sale in Vivienne Westwood's King's Road shop in the late 1970s. Or perhaps it's down to the easy access to mulled wine - the perfect accompaniment to an evening's pogoing to Clash B-sides after you've taken your mutt-on-a-string for a stroll down Camden Lock...
- www.nme.com
2013-12-21
★★★★★
In which we take you from traditional finger picker John Fahey to death metal shredder J.J. Hrubovcak, from punk rats Bad Religion to Rat Packers Sinatra, Martin & Davis, from the duck dynastyers The Robertsons to the chipmunk clan Alvin & The Chipmunks... and much much more...
BY THE BLURT STAFF & CONTRIBUTORS
From the 2012 Xmas report: "For the initial three years of BLURT's tenure I purposely steered clear of assigning reviews of Christmas albums, thinking those to be more properly the...
- blurtonline.com
2013-12-20
★★★★★
Bad Religion - Christmas Songs
Underwhelming thousands
at Christmas
They've spent the past 30 years railing against the influence of religion in American politics but, hey, even Bad Religion needs a holiday from such dedicated righteousness. It's hard to begrudge the two wise men, Graffin and Gurewitz, for getting into the festive spirit by delivering this mini-album of Christmas classics.
It starts promisingly enough, with the flood of vocal harmonies that introduce Hark...
- recordcollectormag.com
2013-12-17
★★★★★
Only rarely is a modicum of wit and invention shown: O Come, O Come Emmanuel fares suprisingly well with a punk-rock makeover, and the Ramonesification of White Christmas at least raises a smile. But finishing off the album with a run-through of their own 1993 single American Jesus only serves to show that Bad Religion are capable of so much more...
- www.theguardian.com
2013-12-13
★★★★★
There's no Christmas like a Punk Rock Christmas, and no better way to celebrate that holiday than with this collection of traditional songs set to a Gabba Gabba Hey back beat. "Angels We Have Heard On High" might fake you out. It opens with the band singing a reasonable acapella version of this old hymn, but after 30 seconds the fake out ends with a blasting 4/4 time guitar and drum thrash out. There are 9 zippy tracks here and all but one began life on a "Greatest Holiday Hits Album...
- www.ink19.com
2013-12-12
★★★★★
I hate Christmas albums. I hate their saccharine-sweet cod-religious exhortations, the god-damned jingle bells and the enforced jollity of the whole shebang. Unfortunately, my other half loves the bloody things, and every year insists on dragging them out and torturing me with them. It also happens that I absolutely love punk covers - especially those done in a Nineties SoCal style. So, when 's turned up, it seemed like the perfect solution to my domestic strife. And it very much is...
- www.drownedinsound.com
2013-11-29
★★★★★
Even for shameless seasonal music fans, most new holiday releases are lame. It's tough to compete with Louis Armstrong, Dinah Washington or Bing Crosby. And if you're not going to have an All I Want For Christmas-level hit, what's the point? Bad Religion's Christmas album is one of the most unusual in recent memory. It might seem like a strange fit, but the punk legends' famous three-part harmonies actually suit the genre quite nicely, particularly on the churchy opening to Hark...
- nowtoronto.com
2013-11-21
★★★★★
Even for shameless seasonal music fans, most new holiday releases are lame. It's tough to compete with Louis Armstrong, Dinah Washington or Bing Crosby. And if you're not going to have an All I Want For Christmas-level hit, what's the point?
Bad Religion's Christmas album is one of the most unusual in recent memory.
It might seem like a strange fit, but the punk legends' famous three-part harmonies actually suit the genre quite nicely, particularly on the churchy opening to Hark...
- www.nowtoronto.com
2013-11-22
★★★★★
Throughout their illustrious 34-year career, Bad Religion have remained remarkably consistent compared to their contemporaries. Of their sixteen studio albums, twelve or thirteen of them range from really good to great, and even the other few have their moments. At this point, a large section of the punk scene is fully comfortable giving them carte blanche based on their back catalogue. Which, to a certain degree, might be one reason why Christmas Songs exists...
- www.punknews.org
2013-11-02
Loading...
