Christmas music tends to evoke strong responses from people;
\neither you love it or you hate it. There is no middle ground. This
\nprevents a good number of people from hearing some very excellent
\nmaterial, the Christmas part of it notwithstanding. A perfect
\nexample of this is Trans- Siberian Orchestra’s
\nChristmas Eve And Other Stories<\/i>.<\/p>\n
While you won’t hear all of the material in the accepted
\nChristmas Canon on this album, you will hear some of the more
\nfamous numbers. “O Come All Ye Faithful,” “O Holy Night,” “The
\nNutcrackers Suite, “Carol Of The Bells,” “God Rest Ye Merry
\nGentlemen,” all of these can be heard being delivered in the unique
\nreinterpretation TSO gives them. The latter half of the album is
\nmostly original material that closes out the album, filling in the
\nstoryline of an angel sent down by God to “find out the worth” of
\nhumanity. How the story ends I leave for you to find out, it’s
\nworth it.<\/p>\n
Again, there are Christmas standards on this album, but they are
\nperformed in such a unique way that they sound fresh and new The
\nOrchestra throws a variety of styles in play. “O Come All Ye
\nFaithful\/O Holy Night” is essentially a four-minute guitar solo,
\nsuitably over the top and grandiose.” “The Prince Of Peace” throws
\na bit of R&B\/Gospel into the mix. “The Silent Nutcracker”
\nquiets things down with a strictly acoustic performance, before the
\nalbum hits its high points with “A Mad Russian’s Christmas” and
\n“Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12\/24)”. The former is a delightful,
\nsynth-laden romp through “The Nutcracker Suite.” The latter is the
\nquintessential TSO song, rock fused with classical music,
\nemotional, and driving, This isn’t just the highpoint of the album,
\nit is the best song in the Orchestra’s catalogue to date.<\/p>\n
The original material on
\nChristmas Eve<\/i> is good, not great. The lyrics are
\nclich\u00e9d and overtly sentimental, but they work with the
\noverall idea. After all, Christmas is clich\u00e9d and
\nsentimental, so I can’t complain. As I mentioned earlier, the
\nsecond half of the album is composed solely of original songs, most
\nof which don’t leave much of an impressions. However, special
\nmention must be made of “Old City Bar.” I don’t want to say what
\nhappens, because it’s important to the story, but it is a song even
\nthe most cynical person can’t avoid but liking.<\/p>\n
The trees are being putting up, the decorations being hung, and
\nthe lights turned on. Shopping, family, all sorts of things keep us
\ndistracted during the holiday season. Do yourself a favor, one
\nnight when it’s snowing, turn out all the lights, and just sit back
\nand enjoy
\nChristmas Eve And Other Stories<\/i>. Just for a few minutes out
\nof these last busy weeks, take some time and remember what
\nChristmas is all about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":24879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6029],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-38195","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-trans-siberian-orchestra","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38195","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\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38195"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38195"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}