Tuesday, 20 December 2022

Sarah Connor - Not So Silent Night


5 DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS!!

Buy Not So Silent Night here (external link)

I celebrate the season far too long for some people's liking. 60 days of the year I'm immersed in enough festive merriment to power me through the other 305. What I have learned, however, is it is never too late to discover a new Christmas album - even if it is just a few days before the big day (Santa's birthday). An album of holiday music is for life - not just the season it is released. Find one that charms you and you have the soundtrack to memories gone by as well as the accompaniment to memories you have yet to make. That is why I'm ready to get raucous via Sarah Connor's new Yuletide opus, Not So Silent Night. A magical party from start to finish, it is like I've been shaken up and all around me snow is cascading like healing musical glitter from the heavens...
  • Jolly Time of Year ~ the album gets started with something that is both merry and bright; essential ingredients for any Christmas song. A jazzy tinged, finger click groove welcomes in Sarah's engaging, warming vocal, horn blasts and a shimmy those shoulders refrain. A lovely piano middle 8 makes it feel like an intimate cabaret club performance that will have you feeling glad from head to mistletoe. Utterly enchanting start to this glorious opus - one where you are immersed in Christmas spirit.
  • Ring Out The Bells ~ the party shifts up a gear, as if the libations have started flowing after that gracious welcome via the opening track. Decadent scale-descending chiming bells do indeed ring out, giving this song a feeling of being both joyful and triumphant. Lyrics, much like Jolly Time of Year, celebrate the magic of the season alongside how that makes Sarah feel. Descriptive lyrics paint a vivid picture, leading you into the deliciously layered chorus.
  • Not So Silent Night ~ imagine Billy Joel's We Didn't Start The Fire as a rawk-ish festive rock song and you have this entirely addictive melodic poem dedicated to the noisy craziness of Christmas (and how wonderful it really is if you just take a second to breathe and appreciate). A furiously fuzzy riff of guitar licks and belting percussion help you get a cathartic workout so you are ready for the next festive tradition. Sarah's doesn't just sing; she performs the heck out of this (& gets in some pointedly wicked and witty jabs too). 
  • Blame It On The Mistletoe ~ who needs Santa Baby or Baby It's Cold Outside with this seductive burlesque-esque song, all about wanting to get even more romantic (or even lustful) shenanighans with your boo (despite what your other commitments might be). The music is as flirtatious as Sarah is coquettish in her mission to remain cuddled up inside all day. The dance between piano and strings in the middle 8 is a beautiful extension of the lyrical content...
  • 24th ~ a change of pace for this lilting, acoustic ballad (with an elegiac string accompaniment) that is all about missing ones missing from your life as the big day looms. It is wonderfully reflective during the verses before exploding in a sea of emotion (and a wall of sound) during that chorus. Insightful lyrics like "your mouth was loose/now I just want to kiss it" is brilliantly representative and recognisable by anyone who's lain awake at night replaying the ghosts of Christmas past.
  • (1-2-3-4) Shots of Patron ~ any song that starts "I'm here all alone/blowing bubbles in my bathtub foam" instantly has my attention; when it is a sparkling, funky pop song with holiday overtures (meaning you could get away with playing it all year round), then I'm as smitten as Sarah is with the person she just swiped right on. Rhyming tipsy with kiss me is a stroke of genius, perhaps the best since naming a song Blame It On The Mistletoe. Who knew Christmas could be so horny?!
  • Christmas 2066 ~ I love how ruminative people get at Christmas and New Year; I think it all started with ABBA's Happy New Year but Sarah's Christmas 2066 really builds on the hopefulness of that song. There is a theme of climate change disaster in here (a subject we should all be paying more attention to) but it is Sarah's optimism that better times are ahead that is the real draw here. It just glitters from start to end, a great representation of the indomitable human spirit. 
  • Santa, If You're There ~ well this may be the most devastating song of the season; all about loss at the most wonderful time of the year. Sarah sings with such heartfelt emotion and clings to the happy memories but how they also exacerbate the hole left by that person. As someone who lost their dad a few weeks ago, I may be too emotionally raw/invested to be objective about this song but as devastating as it is it is also one of the most poignant songs I've heard in a long time. The aural hug I needed.
  • Quiet White ~ sometimes you need a song that just helps the crazy of the world pause, even if it is just for the time the song plays. This heavenly piano-vocal ballad is a serene beacon of calm in a noisy landscape of sound. Sarah's breathy vocals showcase a touching vulnerability (think She Used To Be Mine from Waitress), in perfect harmony with the ebb and flow of the piano arrangement. In its simplicity you get to hear the complexity of the composition. Making it seem so effortless is a gift.
  • Come Home ~ I love that Sarah can make modern rock vibes sound like the most engaging holiday song. Think Alanis singing carols in the late 90s. Just a note, these comparisons aren't because I think Sarah is derivative; rather that she is an expressive chameleon who is able to deliver consistency through genre-hopping thanks to the anchor of writing, performing and production. It is just one of the facets that makes this whole album a joy from head to mistle(toe). 
  • I Think I'm In Love With You ~ this raw ballad lays sentiments and feelings bare, the exquisite agony of unrequited (I think) love swathed in melancholy score. Most of my teens and 20s were spent singing this type of song to myself  and Sarah performs it with far more mellifluous feeling and eloquence than I could ever manage. The type of song that is always timely and timeless - a single that could be released after Christmas and extend the album campaign into the new year...
  • Don't You Know That It's Christmas ~ there really is no let up in quality as you get towards the end of 12 original songs. The last of the Sarah Connor penned co-writes is a buoyant, icy cool groove. It is a contemporary look at how miserable people can be at a time when people should be joyously resplendent. Spread a little love is the message and it is delivered with such infectious charm that you can't help but be swept up in the merriement of it all. Dreamy sigh.
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