As I write this review, we have 43 days until Christmas. I can
\ndeal with that, as well as the approaching holiday season – even if
\nI don’t know how I’m gonna pay for all the gifts I plan on buying
\nfor my family.<\/p>\n
But I can’t begin to tell you how depressing it is to start
\ngetting Christmas music in the mail for review – and it starts
\narriving in September. Sometimes, the road I travel in this job is
\na difficult one.<\/p>\n
One disc which I can guarantee you won’t find on the shelves of
\nTarget is from a small group, Yes Virginia. A three-piece group
\nfrom Delaware, Paul Janocha and crew take traditional carols and
\nput a little (not a lot, a little) harder of an edge behind them
\nwith electric guitar, bass and drums. Their 1998 self-titled CD
\nbrings back memories of how groups like Mannheim Steamroller got
\ntheir start in the Christmas music juggernaut — and though this
\nfour-song disc is far too short, I’d say it holds out more than
\njust a little promise for this group.<\/p>\n
The band — bassist\/keyboardist\/guitarist Janocha, guitarist Joe
\nMerkel and drummer Mac Hine — carefully make sure that they’re not
\ntreading on the traditions of each song they do while adding a bit
\nof ’90s kick to the songs. There is a spirit of reverence towards
\nthe original melodies — and that’s something that I think is rare
\nin the modern approach towards holiday music.<\/p>\n
I will level one criticism, though: “O Come O Come Emmanuel” is
\na song that doesn’t seem to adapt very well to 20th Century musical
\nstyles. While Janocha and crew do a respectable job covering the
\n12th Century carol, it does sound a bit disjointed.<\/p>\n
The remaining three songs are all executed flawlessly. “Carol Of
\nThe Bells,” a 19th Century Ukranian carol, adapts well to this
\nmusical style, as does their cover of “Do You Hear What I Hear” —
\nif you listen closely, you’ll here a short snippet of “The Little
\nDrummer Boy” as the song fades out.<\/p>\n
No matter how many times I listen to their take on “God Rest Ye
\nMerry Gentlemen,” I can’t help but think of the Mannheim
\nSteamroller version — and I kind of like Yes Virginia’s take
\nbetter. It’s smoother and it doesn’t try to inject too much
\nmodernism into an English carol from the 19th Century.<\/p>\n
The one thing I don’t like about
\nYes Virginia<\/i> is its length — this disc clocks in at just
\nover 11 minutes. I understand that indie bands work on a tight
\nbudget, but this is a disc that cries out for more songs. There is
\nsupposed to be a new release from the band for this holiday season
\n— and if it’s anything like this particular disc, I want to hear
\nit soon.<\/p>\n
Yes Virginia might be a band you’ve never heard of — but I’m
\nwilling to bet you could have made the claim about the first
\nMannheim Steamroller holiday album. If this band keeps up this kind
\nof quality work, chances are they could be the next Mannheim
\nSteamroller when it comes to Christmas music — and I, for one, am
\nlooking forward to that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6174],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-36344","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-yes-virginia","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36344"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36344"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}