Blackmore's Night - Winter Carols Review
Posted by Evocator Manes on 12.28.2006
Ritchie Blackmore and company finally get into the seasonal spirit act.
Blackmore's Night Winter Carols
2006
Locomotive
6.0
One of the nicest things about Christmas/seasonal albums is that they are perfect for retailers and, to an extent, artists. They invariably sell well every season (Trans-Siberian Orchestra, for example, exists only because of their take on Christmas music and have made more money playing live for a few months out of the year than Savatage did for their entire career), but are only on display cases for a few months, which really neatens up inventory. Additionally, they nearly never go out of print...
It's a no-brainer and a perfect fit and since Ritchie Blackmore has been citing money repeatedly in interviews as his primary motivation for doing this album, it is truly puzzling why he did not jump on this bandwagon far sooner and much earlier. As it stands, the album itself is somewhat confusing. The usual attention to detail on the Blackmore's Night releases is entirely gone. Credits are incomplete or entirely absent and the production sounds really good on some things and very poor on others. The album lists 2005 as the year of recording, which is likely as much of this year has been spent doing the usual press junket tour for the prior album they released this year. The song order is also a bit disjointed, seemingly cobbled together from spare parts. It seems rushed out more than well-planned and organized and the drums still sound muffled and muddy.
As for the songs, Blackmore continues to play guitar better than anyone alive and Candice Night has really found her "zone" vocally and appears intent on never leaving it. In fact, all the vocals have this sort of quality, as it were, which works more often than not, but gets a little repetitive and sometimes annoying when too much experimentation is added to the mix. That is the one danger of doing these albums. Artists are not entitled to fuck around with the songs much. It's one thing to take out nearly all references to "God", "Jesus", "Jesus Christ", et. al. as Candy has done here, but it is quite another to dick with the arrangements. That is a definite no-no. The band has thus wisely chosen to avoid most of the Christian ditties in favor of songs that roughly adhere to a climate change, thus Winter Carols rather than towards a religious holiday, though they end the album with We Wish You A Merry Christmas, though it is used here more as a Happy Trails kind of song than religious.
The art booklet is where things get really skewed. I know this is not a regular album and it doesn't need the thorough packaging detail, but there is no drummer listed and no bass player listed. The only persons credited are Blackmore, Night, the producer (who also played keys) and the two friends of Night, the backup singer sisters. The formatting looks sloppy and haphazard, capitalization is tossed right out and the insert pictures are entirely at random, some featuring seasonal-type shots of snow falling and the like, others clearly taken during summer or fall. A simplistic booklet is fine, one that looks as badly as this one is clearly a product of haste.
The 411: 2006 has not been a good year for the band, with two releases and both of them substandard. Perhaps it is time for the band to take a year off and recharge. As for this in comparison to other Christmas albums, the diversity of the songs and the strength of the band doing their trademark bits, Blackmore on guitar and Night on vocals, are more than enough to set this apart from everything else out there and for that alone, this is a worthy addition to your seasonal collection, if you're into that.
