Customer Reviews
For Christmas Past Present and Future - By: D. Newton, 24 Dec 2007 
Christmas again - what better time to review Low's superb festive album which portrays a more common Christmas experience for many than the forced jollity of your Slade or Wizzard mega-hit.
This eight-track CD is a beauty. Four original Low songs show great variety - from the pure pop of `Just Like Christmas' with its sleigh bells ringing to the hauntingly spiritual telling of the Nativityin `Long Way Around the Sea'.
The cover versions of old (roast) chestnuts are simply inspired. `Silent Night' has wonderfully simple acoustic arrangement whilst `Little Drummer Boy' has never sounded like this before. It is drenchedin guitar reverb & feedback a la My Bloody Valentine but is incredibly moving.
`Christmas' obviously has special resonance at this time of year but the CD can be enjoyed as muchin July as December. It is by turns melancholy, thoughtful, reflective & beautiful. Can you ask for more for Christmas?
Too beautiful to stay awake too - By: Katy Red, 15 Nov 2006 Even my mum was bowled over by the beauty of the tracks on this albumn - it has been the back drop to some of the most wonderful Christmas days we have ever had. If you ever wanted 'something more' out of Christmas, then put this on once you're full up of turkey & pudding.
Just Like Christmas - All year round - By: , 24 Sep 2004 Oh, the pain of christmas - you can't help thinking that the music perenially droningin the shops & incessantly on Radio & TV helps to explain why Christmas is the season of the year with the highest rate of suicide.
Low's 'Christmas', on the other hand, like Spector's 'Christmas Album' is music to warm your soul instead - an absurdly cheap mini-CD which is one of Low's most pure, self-contained & poignant efforts. Their original compositions here are all full of such emptional depth & a haunting, childlike innocence & honesty - no other band on this planet could produce a jaunty, sleigh-bell driven singalong like 'Just Like Christmas' without being laughed off the face of the earth.
The traditionals are just beautiful: 'Little Drummer Boy', with it's slowed down wall of distorted guitar & thumping drum set against perfectly levelled vocals is an absolute gem & 'Silent Night'- a simple vocal (Alan & Mimiin total intuitive harmony) & acoustic version of this tired standard, is turned into a thing of pure majesty. Likewise, their drastic revision of "Elvis's" 'Blue Christmas' retains the spirit (not the schmaltz)of the original, but takes on a whole other dimension with the minimalistic instrumentation & Mimi's almost sultry vocals. There's more - but you should really hear it yourself.
To be fair, most of Low's CDs leave their listeners only partially won over (some tracks appeal instantly, whilst others just don't resonate with people) but for me, 'Christmas' captures the essence & spirit (and I guess, spirituality) of Low at their absolute best on every single track here - vocal perfection, stark, austere instrumentation, & that special sound (sharedin spirit, with the likes of Spacemen 3, Spiritualized, Jesus & Mary Chain, Big Star, Joy Division, Brian Wilson & Phil Spector) that hits youin the head & the heart. Put it this way: any Christmas LP that you want to play (and which still sounds good)in August is got to be worth having. And I've had this for a few years now too...
A glimpse of Christmas when it meant something. - By: , 08 Oct 2003 You know, do you ever feel at Christmas times, that you are deeply unhappy with how things are, & you long for a nostalgic glimpse at when Christmas meant something to people?
Please buy this record - it has got me through the last three Christmasses, & I can foresee my reliance on it continuing for the next ten (until appocalypse).
It'll make you sad, though...
It's Christmas time... - By: Jason Parkes, 11 Dec 2002 I first heard Just Like Christmas on Marc&Lard's Radio 1 showin the late 1990's- this lead me to this divine e.p. (and albums like Secret Name, which features such mindblowing songs as Two Step & Immune). This is the album to play after Phil Spector's collection, Jesus Christ by Big Star, Last Dance by The Cure & Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley (feel I've forgotten an American Music Club song...)- a reminder that Xmas can be a heartbreaking time: how it never measures up to the memory of those that have passed, how it is setin the darkest winter, how the seasonal affects, how people come together over the barcode rather than out of common decency,how archaic notions such as faith appear somewhat absurdin a world where people are going to be turned to mincemeatin the New Year over oil , how many people commit suicide etc (god, I'm sounding like Ingmar Bergman after listening to the Joy Division boxset). Well, this is the ideal music for all that (and more...)
Low compose half this release- the gorgeous Just Like Christmas (Sunday Morning meets the Carpentersin heaven); Long Way Around the Sea (as sparse as Starfire); Alan stays on vocals for If You Were Born Today with its heartfelt "Joy to the world" & the final track One Special Gift (a sense of foreboding when this one ends). The remaining songs are well known Xmas songs- the version of Little Drummer Boy recalls My Bloody Valentine's Glider, while the cover of Elvis's Blue Christmas is as great as Cowboy Junkies Blue Moon Revisted (on the classic Trinity Sessions album). Silent Night recalls the sparse acoustics of Nick Drake & Robert Wyatt, Mimi & Alan's voices coming together (recall The Smiths's Asleep- an ode to suicide ends with this tune also). The final track is Taking Down the Tree, which evokes the happysad emotions of Xmas & the sense that the seasons move on regardless: "seems before it's over it's begun".
Low's Christmas is an album that HAS to be owned at this price & one of those releases you will be guaranteed to come back to at least once a year. Divine stuff...
