Traditional Christmas carol covers, or reinterpretations is the theme for today. I love to see what various bands can do with a traditional song to make it completely their own. I’ve chosen a few of my favourite carols and listened to various versions of them and I have found a few special ones that I would like to share with you today.
Steven Stanley, being one of my favourite artists, is up first with ‘Little Drummer Boy’, a collaboration that he has made with Tommee Profitt, who is an award winning composer for TV and film and has sync placements in movie trailers, TV promos and video games. That said I was expecting this to be good and I wasn’t disappointed. It has a movie trailer sound to it and I really liked the arrangement and the simplified lyrics. I am biased as I do think Steven Stanley can make anything sound good but this is definitely worth a listen here.
My favourite carol of all time has to be ‘O Holy Night’ and I have found a really unique version by a band called Living Scars. I had not come across them before but I liked what I heard so shall be visiting them again in my blogs next year. I always like the power build in a song and this one is amazing and all high notes reached perfectly. I love how they transition from rock to ballad, very clever arrangement and very enjoyable, you can listen here.
‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ is another favourite carol of mine, and I came across a version by Pillar who are again a new band to me and will featuring in future blogs. I really like both the musical arrangement of this one, especially the bass playing, and the hint of full on rock vocals that appear from time to time. I’ll post this one as a video with the lyrics so that you can sing along and enjoy the snow on the mountains, here.
I’m going to end with ‘Carol Of The Bells’ by Rhett Walker. I’ve always loved how this carol sounds, this arrangement however is very different but I think it’s brilliant. Love the rock beats and drumming throughout and the vocals are excellent too. This is definitely a keeper for my Christmas playlist. I’ll leave you to enjoy this here and I’ll go and listen to some more Christmas music ready for next week.
The Church at Hiraeth 