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:
Phil Bardowell (Beach Boys, Magdalen)
Bob Carlisle ("Butterfly Kisses")
Eddie James (Gospel singer)
Jon Gibson (Jon Gibson)
Robin McAuley (Survivor)
Debbie Sledge (Sister Sledge)
Rose Stone (Sly and the Family Stone)
Amanda Wolf
Jill Ragee
Scott Jeffers (Traveler)

Guitars:
Doug Aldrich (Whitesnake)
Kendall Bechtel (Fifth Angel)
Lanny Cordola (House Of Lords, Beach Boys, Kenny Wayne Shepherd)
Jason Hook (Alice Cooper, Mandy Moore)
Shane Gibson (KoRn)
Bruce Kulick (KISS, Grandfunk Railroad, Billy Squire)
Chris Sanders (Lizzy Borden)
John Davis (F5)
Steve Connelly (F5)
Bill Leverty (Firehouse)
George Lynch (Dokken, Lynchmob)
Elliot Randell (Steeley Dan, Asia)

Bass:
David Ellefson (Megadeth, F5)
Chuck Wright (Quiet Riot, Vanilla Fudge)

Drums:
Ken Mary (Alice Cooper, House of Lords)

Strings:
Kip Winger (Winger, Alice Cooper)

Keys:
Dizzy Reed (Guns-n-Roses)
Brian Stewart (Backstreet Boys, Poe, Evermore, Donkey Ollie)

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.