Gaspard Royant – Wishing You a Merry Christmas (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 39:19 minutes | 447 MB | Genre: Alternative, Christmas
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Bellevue
Scooping up tracks from Royant’s seasonal singles and marrying them to newly recorded cuts, Wishing You a Merry Christmas is cool, hip and opens with a swinging cover of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” drawn from Phil Spector’s 1963 A Christmas Gift for You from Philles Records album. After this, the self-composed (“C’mon Baby) It’s Christmas Time!” sets the tone for a ten-tracker which swims in less-obvious waters, even when a song is over familiar.
Royant’s take on John Lennon’s “Happy Christmas (War is Over)” sticks to the template vocally but otherwise injects a gentle dose of Sigur Rós’ textural blur. Eels’ “Everything’s Gonna Be Cool This Christmas” is rendered straightforwardly, but Wham’s “Last Christmas” is given a Roy Orbison-esque makeover. The album ends with a fine, moody, Chris Isaak-indebted run through U2’s “New Year’s Day”.
Tastefulness is a rare commodity with Christmas albums, but Wishing You a Merry Christmas has it in spades. As a similarly classy but new contribution to an easily maligned genre, file it alongside Paul Revere & the Raiders’ bizarre A Christmas Present…and Past, Psychic TV’s Pagan Day, Etiquette Records’ Merry Christmas album, Les Disques Du Crépuscule’s Chantons Noël – Ghosts of Christmas Past and the Ze label’s A Christmas Record.
Tracklist:
01. Chorus Colomani – Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) (02:36)
02. Chorus Colomani – (C’mon Baby) It’s Christmas Time! (03:24)
03. Chorus Colomani – Christmas Time Again (02:33)
04. Chorus Colomani – Christmas Is Back in Town (03:13)
05. Chorus Colomani – Happy Christmas (War Is Over) (04:50)
06. Chorus Colomani – Everything’s Gonna Be Cool This Christmas (03:22)
07. Chorus Colomani – White Christmas (03:55)
08. Chorus Colomani – I Can’t Believe It’s Christmas (04:39)
09. Chorus Colomani – Last Christmas (04:07)
10. Chorus Colomani – New Year’s Day (06:35)
