here<\/a> to get more information on it — and when
\nyou order it, tell them “The Daily Vault” sent you.)<\/p>\nTaking the four songs off their privately-released 2001 disc
\nMy Favorite Things<\/i>, the band — bassist Janocha, guitarist
\nJoe Merkel, keyboardist\/vocalist Mario Padovani and drummer Gregg
\nHoffmann – add four tracks to not only flesh out the previous
\nrelease, but kick it into an entirely new realm. While I liked
\nMy Favorite Things<\/i>, the additional tracks make it that much
\nbetter.<\/p>\n
Since Yes Virginia was an instrumental band up until 2001, it is
\nunderstandable the band is still trying to find its place in the
\nsinging department. The operatic style of “My Favorite Things”
\nisn’t quite the perfect fit, though Padovani does make it work well
\non “Here We Come A-Caroling,” especially in the layered harmony
\nvocals. But their take on “Happy Christmas (War Is Over)” —
\nincluding sharing of lead vocal duties with Merkel – absolutely
\nseals the deal. Taking a respected modern-day Christmas song like
\nthis is a risky proposition for any group, but Yes Virginia treats
\nit with the love and respect it deserves. The use of acoustic
\nguitar — if memory serves me right, its first appearance on any
\nYes Virginia release — is perfect. If I had to find one fault with
\nthis disc, though, it would be that the acoustic is underutilized –
\nit would have fit perfectly with their take on Vince Guaraldi’s
\n“Christmastime Is Here”.<\/p>\n
The instrumental performances are still powerful, and shouldn’t
\nbe discounted merely because of the addition of vocals. The merging
\nof “The First Noel” with Pachelbel’s “Canon In D” is inspired, and
\nboth songs are reverently played, even with the hard-rock stylings
\nof the band. Their take on “Silver Bells” is still a lot of fun to
\nlisten to, and with the continued war in Iraq going on, the almost
\ndirge-like take on “Silent Night” is that much more powerful,
\nthough I don’t think this was ever the intention of the band.<\/p>\n
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: a Yes Virginia
\nrelease is one of the things I most look forward to every Christmas
\nseason.
\nAnd So This Is Christmas<\/i>, to this point, is easily the
\nband’s best work, and is one holiday CD that counts as a
\n“must-own”. Now that it’s combined with all the other releases from
\nthe band, there is no excuse not to give them significant play on
\nyour stereo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6174],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-38198","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-yes-virginia","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38198","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=38198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38198"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38198"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}