Because bands with goofy names make goofy Christmas music.
The Sound That Ends Creation, Merry Christmas You Filthy Animal
“Want to get into the Christmas spirit, but hate boomer music?” asks this album’s Bandcamp. Well, specifically, do you need synth-laden grindcore versions of Christmas standards like “Jingle Bells,” “Winter Wonderland,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” and “Deck the Halls”? Turns out you do! Especially if, in the middle of the cacophony of “Winter Wonderland,” there’s a sample of Cousin Eddie shouting “Shitter’s full!” (Preceding track “Jingle Bells” ends with a sample of Clark Griswold taking in the silent majesty of a winter’s morn... the clean, cool chill of the holiday air... an asshole in his bathrobe, emptying a chemical toilet into a sewer.) The Sound That Ends Creation—coincidentally, how my dad described my high school band—“takes the mathiest of math, the grindiest of grind, and some good old fashioned wierdness [sic] and throws it into a blender.” The tired “throws it into a blender” cliché aside, TSTEC has some excellent song titles, like these from this year’s Memes, Dreams, and Flying Machines: “Can I Be Aborted, Even Though I’m 29?”, “Eating Holograms of Twinkies Will Still Make You Gain Weight, Sorry,” “Staring into the Jaws of Capitalism and Saying Yes Daddy Please,” and “King Douche on His Throne of Loneliness.” TSTEC, we need a Christmas full-length in 2021.
Kid Taco, Welcome to the Jingle
Released just days ago, Welcome to the Jingle by Boston’s Kid Taco boasts six songs with solid to great song titles: “I’m Back on My Yule Shit,” “The Snow in the Sky Fell to Earth, as a Jolly Man Drops from His Sleigh When Shaken By a High Wind,” “The Most Wonderful Time of the Worst Year,” “Who Gives a Fuck About Christmas Stuff?”, “Your Dumb Thirst Will Be No More When Fanta Claus Comes Tonight,” and “Do They Have an Amazon Wish List?” As jokey as those titles are, the music… isn’t bad? The songs are all instrumental versions of standards— “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”—presumably retitled to avoid having to pay for them, played with synthesizers and overdriven into a scratchy, distorted mess. Imagine if Sleigh Bells did an EP of off-kilter Christmas songs. (Wait, have they done that? C’mon, their name is Sleigh Bells.) Kid Taco’s first Christmas release, 2018’s Wake Me Up When December Ends—again, well done—advised the EP was “totally for you if you like your music through blown out speakers.” (It’s also “the perfect gift for that special no one.”) “Do They Have an Amazon Wish List” buries the original song under thick distortion with additional percussion and synthesizers layered on top, a psychotic break put to music.
The Men That Will Not Be Blamed for Nothing, A Very Steampunk Christmas
The Men That Will Not Be Blamed for Nothing (bio: “Gleefully mocking the rotten corpse of Britain’s past since 2008”) recently noted the 10th anniversary of this EP with a Facebook post providing 13 behind-the-scenes tidbits. (I can’t link it here because Facebook is the goddamn worst.) Number one? “We now regret the title.” Understandable. I regret it, and I only saw it for the first time minutes ago. But this four-song EP has loads of charm, from the band’s almost comically British accents, to the oi-punk joy of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (Comfort and Oi),” and the raucous retconning of “Ebenezer’s Carol.”
Flesh Eating Foundation, Santa is an Anagram of Satan
This British industrial/noise outfit—sorry, “pretentious artwank horrorpop”—has released a Christmas song almost every year since 2005, and all of them are collected on the new Santa is an Anagram of Satan. Just as the Church Lady warned us decades ago.
(Michael Scott guest-edited this issue, apparently.)
The compilation features the new song “Very Cash Mass,” whose critique of the holiday’s commercialization lands with all the subtlety of an ironic Christmas sweater.
The season of good will
Will see bellies overspill,
bins overfill,
budget overkill,
seeking the thrill
of an occasion grown soulless, empty and goalless,
looking everso grim from beneath the trimmings where the
carcass of true meaning rots
It’s practically an Andy Williams song! There’s also “I Saw Mother…,” whose opening line continues, “killing Santa Claus.” Presuming Santa to be an intruder, she made swift work of him:
Leaving all the lights off for an element of surprise
Almost right behind him she struck a blow with her trusty rolling pin
He dropped like a sack of Christmas coal with barely any din
In writing, the lyrics read like a non-hillbilly “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer,” but in practice, the nearly nine-minute story-song is dark, ominous, and deeply silly. Mother eventually hoists Santa’s corpse onto the sleigh and sends the reindeer off with it, before returning to the bathroom to clean up the viscera that spilled when his skull cracked open.
She hadn’t Believed in Santa Claus since she was about 4
But it turns out he was alive and real but he isn’t anymore
I saw Mother killing Santa Claus it’s true
And now there are no more presents coming for you you and you
Merry Christmas Everybody
Ralphie’s Red Ryders, You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out!
Everything featured in this edition so far operates on some level of irony, but Ralphie’s Red Ryders offer a straight-forward blast of good-natured power pop nostalgia. None of the 12 songs clocks in at longer than 2:10—just long enough to drop some clever lyrics and move on before the novelty wears off. The songs vary from obvious (“I Won’t Shoot My Eye Out,” “The Bumpus Hounds,” “Electric Sex”) to deeper pulls (“They Traded Bullfrog,” “I Wanna Go to Higbee’s Tonight,” “I Can’t Put My Arms Down”), and others in between (“Hey Scut, You Suck,” “I Don’t Want Your Tinker Toys”). The songs all follow the same template: thick, sludgy guitar distortion, a quick tempo, and peppy vocals. It’s kind of like if the Ramones had written an album devoted to A Christmas Story, but without any references to sniffing glue.
Angry Snowmans, Angry Snowmans
I never got into Angry Samoans, but hats off to this band of “disgruntled, displaced Elves of the North Pole who are telling the world about Santa’s abusive practices by playing classic punk rock songs.” Tracks include “Ebenezer Uber Alles,” “Somebody’s Gonna Get Their Halls Decked In,” “Santa is a Fatso,” and many more. Their latest, Snow Means Snow, has some awesome ragers like “Gift Card” and the “Holiday in Cambodia” takeoff, “Holiday Selaphobia” (the fear of flashing lights). +1.
Voldi & the Morts, Voldis Knorke XMESS Banger
Read another book.
POST-SCRIPTS
As you can probably imagine, there are a lot of pandemic-themed Christmas songs and albums out there. All I Want for Christmas is My Two Vaccines by Andrew & Jake is pretty typical, featuring songs like “Baby It’s COVID Outside,” “I’ll Stay Home for Christmas,” “Grandma Got the ’Rona,” “Christmas (Baby Please Stay Home),” and “Oh Holy Pfizer.” There’s also a compilation from Green Monkey Records called Pandemic Christmas, but it’s more notable for a few band names: Frankly, My Deer; Toiling Midgets; and Toxic Socket.
Shoutout to Scottish band the Boy with the Lion Head, who covers Low’s “It was Just Like Christmas” with a delightfully thick Scottish accent.
I’m adding several of these songs to my Spotify holiday playlist, which will undoubtedly upset my wife and daughter. Suggestions for additions are welcome!
Band bio for Voldi & the Morts: I have no nose :(
Hey, merry Christmas if you celebrate it, and happy new year to everyone. See you in January.