Christmas Christmas (2017)


 
1. Merry Christmas Darlings 2. I Wish it Could Be Christmas Every Day 3. I Wish it Was Christmas Today 4. Merry Xmas Everybody 5. Please Come Home for Christmas 6. Remember Christmas 7. Run Rudolph Run 8. Father Christmas 9. Silent Night 10.Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight) 11.Our Father of Life 12.Christmas Christmas

 

What could have been a throwaway novelty — a Christmas album by Cheap Trick — emerges as something far more substantial. If Billy Idol can dabble in yuletide festivities, why not Rockford’s most resilient sons? But while the premise might have raised eyebrows, the execution lands confidently, with more invention than most seasonal offerings dare to attempt.

The band eschews the typical sleigh bell schmaltz in favor of material that, while loosely tied to the season, stays true to their musical DNA. The selections lean towards the unexpected: Roy Wood’s glam pastiche, The Ramones' frantic glee, Chuck Berry’s shuffle, and The Kinks’ kitchen-sink cynicism. There are also a handful of originals, modest in ambition, charming in tone — the kind of songs that won't echo through malls for decades, but serve their purpose admirably in the moment.

And then there’s Robin Zander. The man could sing tax codes and make them shimmer. His voice elevates the project from festive sideshow to something approaching transcendence. It’s no wonder the band slips in more traditional fare — Silent Night and Nilsson’s delicate Remember Christmas — even if these moments jolt against the punk-tinged irreverence elsewhere. Yet they’re not merely tolerable; they’re revelatory. Zander’s rendering of Silent Night stands among the best, and Nilsson’s composition, already quietly luminous, takes on a near-liturgical grace under his care.

The album closes on a curious note with the band’s own Our Father of Life, a quasi-religious original that plays it completely straight. It feels beamed in from another project entirely — perhaps the Christmas album Zander ought to record solo. Still, it’s this earnestness, this refusal to wink too hard, that gives the record its strange, compelling glow.

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