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Submitted by Jeremy Hunt on Thursday, October 29, 2009 - 10:58AM
Artist: Northern Light Orchestra Album: The Spirit of Christmas Members: Too many to count. Read the review. Label: Vertical Shift Tracks: 17 Type: LP Release Date: October 20, 2009 Discs: 1 Rating: () Grade: C- Woah. This album is all sorts of cheesy. It’s a veritable smorgasbord of amazing clichés and incredible leftovers from the 80s. This is essentially a Christmas supergroup project comprised of vocalists and musicians from a who’s-who gallery of 80s hair metal bands. Okay, they might not all be hair metal, but that’s the strong vibe given off here. If you absolutely have to know who’s involved, here’s the breakdown (copied from their MySpace page because the thought of re-writing this list makes my head spin): Vocals: Guitars: Bass: Drums: Strings: Keys: So yeah, if that list sounds like your idea of a good time, then this record is for you. It’s chock full of Christmas carols and original compositions. And in NLO’s version of Christmas, there’s nary a guitar (or drum) solo met here that they didn’t like. The soaring awesome badness here is mind-boggling to behold. If you thought Meatloaf was theatrical, you haven’t seen anything yet. Now to be fair (if only for a moment), the chops on display here are quite good. There’s no doubt that every musician here can bring it. It’s just that they never cease letting you know that. Therein lies the problem. This is so over-the-top that it’s tough to take any of it seriously. Case in point? Their rendition of “Joy To The World.” It’s over four minutes long, yet the actually singing only takes up a minute and half of that time. The rest is jammed to the gills with solos, drum fills, keyboard arpeggios and whatever else was handy. It’s like a Strong Bad musical email come to life. So yeah. Woah. And not in a cool “Keanu Reeves is Neo discovering The Matrix for the first time” woah. More like “I just heard the musical equivalent of Amelia Earhart divebombing the deck of the Titanic as it ran aground at the Chernobyl nuclear facility” woah. And it’s not pretty. |
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Comments
This is a hit!
I completely disagree with this review. This is a refreshing album....something different than the same ole stuff. Kudos to these guys for bringing back guitar solos and putting them into Christmas. Definitely a must have this holiday season
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