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Review written by Alan Pedder from wears the trousers magazine
In the sleevenotes to his exhaustive five-disc Christmas boxset Sufjan Stevens wrote that “At its worst Christmas music is sentimental and benign; at its best, it is melancholy and sublime. But even the most insipid, blatantly commercial tunes and even the most ardently religious ones carry with them a particular kind of joyful sadness”. Sufjan’s good pal Rosie Thomas has obviously been taking note as A Very Rosie Christmas, her first seasonal release, is often melancholy, frequently sublime and full of feeling. Unlike some other singers, when Thomas sings “Christmas is my favourite time of year” on the brilliantly simple singalong ‘Why Can’t It Be Christmastime All Year’, it’s delivered with such sweetly yearning conviction that the authenticity of her exultations is never questioned. And while it’s not all as winsomely exuberant as that should-be-classic original with all its bells and whistles, Thomas keeps our fire burning whatever the pace, even during the four-minute instrumental of ‘Snow Day’ (sadly not the Lisa Loeb cover I was secretly hoping for).
Always a thing of tangible beauty, Thomas’s voice possesses the perfect lilting charm to transform even well-worn classics like ‘Winter Wonderland’ and ‘Silent Night’ into something different from the established norm. The arrangement on the latter in particular approaches a profoundly beautiful divinity of its own, and is almost certainly unlike any other version you may have heard. Truly impressive. Equally worthy of quiet admiration is her version of ‘O Come O Come Emmanuel’, while the vocal harmonies she works up with brother Brian on the softly jaunty, trumpet specked ‘Let It Snow’ are tremendously lovely.
The two major piano ballads ‘Alone At Christmastime’ and ‘Christmas Don’t Be Late’ sit side by side in the album’s second half, and while the first unsettles slightly due to a constant background haze of keyboards, the second gradually swells into a huge, life-affirming singalong with the Santa’s Helpers Choir – Rosie’s friends and family, including Damien Jurado – banishing all memories of Alvin, Simon and Theodore’s cochlea-shredding bleatings. It’s a stirring triumph. Even her cover of Joni Mitchell’s ‘River’ is hard to pick holes in, though I felt the absence of the original’s piano at first as it’s left to undulating ripples of strings to propel the song along.
Part of the appeal of A Very Rosie Christmas was the promise of the first recorded appearance of her stand-up comedian alter ego Sheila Saputo, a neck brace-wearing pizza delivery girl from Indiana. Here, Sheila is granted a nine-minute spot in which to shine in a bizarre skit in the vein of the Prairie Home Companion, set in a supplies shop. It’s not rip roaringly funny, more uncomfortably amusing, and you probably won’t need to revisit it but it shows another side to Thomas that some fans may not yet have witnessed. “I march to the beat of my own djembe,” announces Sheila, and somehow that seems to sum it all up. I won’t spoil Rosie’s personal farewell message for you but suffice to say it’s hard to tell who’s had more fun with the album as it comes to a close – the listener or Thomas’s ensemble – and that’s the spirit of Christmas right there.
A Very Rosie Christmas
by Rosie Thomas
Original Release Date: November 25, 2008
Label : Nettwerk
Number of Discs: 1
Format: Import
Buy Album: Click Here
About the author : Alias is a French self-made-man, multi-talented artist, he is also a music-producer, screen writer and artistic director for films. Read more from this author
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