1. Part 1 2. White As Snow 3. Snowglobe 4. Frost 5. Part 2 6. Christmas Kinkade 7. This Is Christmas 8. Grandpa Rocket 9. Ol' Frosty 10. Part 3 11. Fever Wreath 12. You Came To Save 13. Part 4 14. Melodies & Symphonies 15. New Years Eve |
For their tenth Christmas album, "Merry Xmas", the group revisits some of their favorite and best songs from the decade past. But, rather than just collect up the previous recordings, it's The Winter Failure unplugged, as it's just the guys and one guitar. And it works. First of all, a good song is a good song and doesn't need to be heavily produced. Second, The Winter Failure was almost always better on their originals than on covers and this "Greatest Hits" collection, if you will, dispenses with the covers (though I do miss "Breath of Heaven" on this collection). And, finally, their best stuff was really, really good. I immediately remembered songs that had been favorites, like "This Is Christmas" and "Snow Globe" and "Fever Wreath" and "New Year's Eve". For those reasons and more, "Merry Xmas" does not suffer from the unevenness that always bothered me on previous sets. If there was ever an album to introduce you to The Winter Failure at their finest, this is the one.
As I listen to "Merry Xmas", I can't help but feel I've been too harsh of The Winter Failure. Because, at the core, these are people making music--and Christmas music--for the simple reason that they love doing it. And what could be wrong with that? "Merry Xmas" can be streamed and/or downloaded from Noisetrade.
Although this isn't the version on "Merry Xmas", "This Is Christmas" was always one of my favorite songs by The Winter Failure. This one was from the group's 2015 record.