1. Angels We Have Heard On High
2. I Saw Three Ships 3. Sweet Little Baby Boy 4. Christ Was Born On Christmas Morn 5. Lo How A Rose E're Blooming 6. Sing We Noel 7. I Pray On Christmas 8. A Cradle In Bethlehem 9. The Rebel Jesus 10. O Come All Ye Faithful 11. Joy To The World FOUND WANDERING WEB SITE FOUND WANDERING ON FACEBOOK CD OR DOWNLOAD VIA BANDCAMP |

A little background. Found Wandering, at its core, is made up of the husband and wife team of Sarah and Colin Comstock, and Jake L'Armand. While they often play as a trio, they know a lot of good musicians and can expand to a 12-piece when they need or want to (I'm figuring you might want a bigger sound for a bigger show--say a festival or something--but that's just guesswork on my part). Though, overall, you might want to stick a Folk or Americana label on Found Wandering, they move easily through lots of different styles and sounds. And the Gospel influence can not be denied.
To begin with, Found Wandering made impeccable song choices. This is where many Christmas albums fail. Found Wandering's work being decidedly on the spiritual side of the street, there was no danger of them falling into a "Santa Baby" trap (please, people, stop covering that song), but they could have easily gone with nothing but classic hymns. As good as they are, it probably would have still been quite good. But their choices were daring and, I think, prove the point, that great and uplifting spiritually based music is always being made. So, yes, the record opens with a beautiful Alt Folk rendition of "Angels We Have Heard On High". But we also get Jackson Browne's "The Rebel Jesus" and Harry Connick Jr.'s "I Pray On Christmas". And then they totally blow my mind by covering Frankie "Half Pint" Jaxson's jubilant 1929 recording of "Christ Was Born On Christmas Morn" (I had to look it up but, yes, it has been covered a couple of times in recent years--by the Blind Boys of Alabama, Bruce Cockburn, and by Rhiannon Giddens).
Of course, having the right tunes is only going to work if you've got the talent to pull it off. They do. The arrangements are fresh and unique, but they never go so far that the soul of the song is lost or unrecognizable. The playing is exquisite--again, resisting the temptation to ever overdo it. The mixing and production is absolutely brilliant. Major labels with million dollar acts and million dollar producers don't do nearly as good a job as Colin, Sarah, and Ron DiSilvestro have done here. And you'd swear that at least 50 people are playing and singing when it's just, at most, a quarter of that. And, yet, for all that, "On A Christmas Night" is an incredibly intimate listening experience. It's like you're five feet away from the band and could just reach out and touch them. That's how alive the album is (for lack of a better word).
And the music. Pinch me. "On A Christmas Night" is very likely to become a fixture of my Christmas Eve (when I routinely pull out my personal Best of the Best). "Angels We Have Heard On High" is glo-or-or-or-or-i-us. Although James Brown gets credit for writing "Sweet Little Baby Boy", I'm sure he took some of that from "Sweet Little Jesus Boy" (popularized by Mahalia Jackson); he just turned a Gospel song into some Bluesy R&B. Found Wandering preserved the Bluesy R&B AND found the missing Gospel. "Christ Was Born On Christmas Day", done Preservation Hall style, is every bit as jubilant as Half Pint Jaxon's original recording (often acknowledged as one of the most joyous performances ever recorded).
"Lo How A Rose E're Blooming" and "A Cradle In Bethlehem" are just fall down gorgeous. "Sing We Noel" gets an Old World makeover. Connick's "I Pray On Christmas" is Rock Gospel (seasoned with Zatarain's, of course), complete with some wicked everybody-get-religion Hammond B3 action from Donald Robinson. "The Rebel Jesus" is so good, I don't even have the words. It's kind of Springsteen meets ELO meets Patty Smyth meets God. "O Come All Ye Faithful" sports a reverent yet playful Classical arrangement. And, if there were such a thing as a Bluegrass Marching Band, that's how "Joy To The World" closes the disc. As they flow effortlessly from genre to genre, they never once lose their own identity. Be it Jazz or Blues or Alt Country, its always Found Wandering.
As "On A Christmas Night" ends, you are left with a feeling of complete joy and hopefulness. I'm guessing that was the plan and Found Wandering succeeded mightily. And, the way things are in the world today, it couldn't be more welcome. (As an aside, I'll tell you what; the quantity of Christmas releases is down this year, but the quality has been through the roof.) "On A Christmas Night" is available on CD or as a digital download through Bandcamp (yeah, the download is at the Big Box Internet stores, too, but why go there when you can get CD quality downloads from Bandcamp). And it's actually the group's second Christmas effort. So you'll probably want to be checking out "Christmas In Country Village" while you're over there. And, what the heck, it's almost Christmas. Grab yourself a free download of "Go Tell It On The Mountain". You can follow Found Wandering on Facebook and through their website. There's also an offer to get all of Found Wandering's albums--their entire digital discography--for an insanely low price, but that's probably a Black Friday deal, so I wouldn't dawdle if that interests you (yes, the spirit of Crazy Eddie lives on).