Christmas CDs roundup: Lone cracker in a sea of turkeys

Christmas albums tend to suffer from being just the same old standards warmed over, but one hip duo has managed to create some songs that could last beyond the end of this year

It’s Christmas time; there’s no need to be afraid. Although this year’s Santa sack of Christmas albums is missing the surreal joys of previous seasonal offerings by Bob Dylan and Billy Idol, there is still a varied haul of twinkling stars and musical turkeys to choose from, delivered by the usual suspects, some fresh faces and a few unwanted guests.

Michael Bublé’s Christmas (Reprise, £12.99, **) is already doing a roaring Christmas stocking trade by giving his fans exactly what they might expect from a Bublé Christmas – pseudo-suave, glossy big band versions of predictable seasonal standards such as White Christmas, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and Santa Baby, a sprinkling of reverential hymns and one original, the flaccid Cold December Night, which add up to a very safe, trad approach to Christmas music with all the depth of an expensive shop window display.

If Bublé is this generation’s Andy Williams, minus the heart and sparkle of those legendary Christmas specials, then Justin Bieber is its Donny Osmond. At least he attempts to add something to the Christmas canon with a handful of originals on Under The Mistletoe (Mercury, £12.99, *) but the results are a horrorshow of soppy R&B and ska-lite. Special mention must go to his thoroughly bizarre version of Drummer Boy featuring an appalling rap by young Bieber himself and the disturbing presence of Busta Rhymes. One to play to the kids if they are misbehaving on Christmas Eve.

In the absence of a Christmas album by The Wombles – or The Muppets, I’m not fussy – this year’s brazen novelty effort is The Wurzels’ Christmas Album (CIA, £11.99, *) featuring club singer massacres of festive favourites, including a cider-soused Fairytale of New York, with added “ooh-arr” and banjo alongside the sleigh bells.

Kate Rusby offers a more credible folky Yuletide on While Mortals Sleep (Pure Records, £13.99, **). Her second compendium of South Yorkshire carols is much the same as her first, featuring local variations of The Rocking Carol, All Hail The Power Of Jesus Name and The Holly & The Ivy, often garnished with mournful brass. Rusby’s breathy vocals are suited to the tremulous ballads but she cannot begin to convey the lustiness of the Yorkshire pub carolling tradition with her insipid approach.

Across the Atlantic, Tennessee couple Joey + Rory provide a soft-centred country response to the season. A Farmhouse Christmas (Vanguard, £12.99, **) outlines the Christmas concerns of the modern redneck, from picking the tree to keeping that marriage together, through a mixed bag of originals and Garth Brooks/Merle Haggard covers. Despite some decent bluegrass ballads and perky western swing, the collection ultimately leans a bit too hard on the pedal steel pathos and only makes me hanker for a truly classy country Christmas offering from Dolly Parton or Glen Campbell.

Carole King’s rather inevitably titled A Christmas Carole (Hear Music/Decca, £13.99, **) is an all-out easy-listening disappointment, despite her laudable decision to resurrect some lesser known Christmas-friendly gems such as Stax standard Everyday Will Be Like A Holiday, Irving Berlin’s I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm and Donny Hathaway’s This Christmas.

A trio of new songs, written by her daughter/producer Louise Goffin, consists of uniformly loungey, MOR fare.

She & Him, aka actress/singer Zooey Deschanel and singer/songwriter M Ward, wish us A Very She & Him Christmas (Double Six Records, £11.99, ***) with their unabashed indie easy listening versions of some old chestnuts such as Silver Bells, Baby, It’s Cold Outside and a couple of seasonal Beach Boys offerings.

The combination of Ward’s plangent guitar and Deschanel’s pure vocal tone is spacey and mesmeric in small doses but can be as sickly as a selection box if sampled in one sitting.

They are not the only indie coupling who are celebrating the season this year. Editors’ frontman Tom Smith and former Razorlight drummer Andy Burrows have turned their friendship into the festive partnership known prosaically as Smith & Burrows. Funny Looking Angels (b-unique, £11.99, ***) is a fairly wet offering but has its occasional charms – usually when Burrows is taking the lead on some light indie folk confection. Smith, on the other hand, is as sombre and self-involved as ever.

There is much more festive fun to be had with indie-rock power couple Emmy the Great and Tim Wheeler, frontman of Ash. Their joint effort This Is Christmas (Infectious Music, £10.99, ****) kicks off with an effervescent cover of the old Bing Crosby hit Marshmallow World and then barely pauses for breath through nine originals penned by the duo while they were snowed in last winter. Christmas Day (I Wish I Was Surfing) is a headlong Ash-style dash, while Emmy has her feminist say on (Don’t Call Me) Mrs Christmas.

As well as being the pick of the festive bunch, it is also the only album in this year’s Christmas stocking to spare a thought for the zombies.