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Album Reviews

There isn’t much to say about Christmas albums: they’re either good or they’re bad. We’ve seen our fair share of the bad, with numerous compilations thrown out just before the start of the holiday season with poor pop-punk Christmas anthems on them. To be honest, worthwhile traditional Christmas albums by rock bands are a rare breed. Thankfully, Duvall has offered up a wonderful ten-track effort chock full of yuletide cheer.

The aptly titled O Holy Night features traditional Christmas songs, rather than Christmas-influenced original songs (see: The Vandals’ Oi to the World). Each song is performed in the trademark Duvall / Smoking Popes (Josh and Eli Caterer both played in the Smoking Popes) manner, with heavy influence on melody and harmonization. It’s excellent rock music if I’ve ever heard it, not just throwaway punk riffs with flat Christmas lyrics over them. The music corresponds nicely with the traditional songs; you won’t find some Me First and the Gimme Gimmies-esque simple punk rock riffs here. What puts the album over the top, however, are the vocals, done wonderfully by lead vocalist Josh Caterer, but not without help from brother Eli and drummer Rob Kellenberger, who also drums (or drummed) in Colossal, Tuesday, and Slapstick. Their three voices (with added vocals from a slew of guest vocalists) create a beautiful atmosphere for the songs, which in turn makes the songs sound even more Christmas-y and traditional. Had the vocals not been so strong, this album would not be nearly as good as it turned out to be.

Highlights include the stellar “Little Drummer Boy,” “O Holy Night,” and the opener, “Angels We Have Heard on High.” The first song catches you off-guard for a moment, beginning with strictly vocals and harmonization, but then transforms into a rocking Christmas anthem. Another surprise to be found was “Oh Come All Ye Faithful,” for it contains no music; just vocals. The song is nothing short of beautiful; you won’t even notice that there is no music, for the band’s voices are more than enough. Finally, the instrumental “Joy To The World” is probably the hardest-rocking track on here, and the omission of vocals allows for your own interpretation of the lyrics: of course, you can always sing the traditional lyrics, but who doesn’t love singing the grade-school favorite “Joy to the world, my teacher’s dead - we barbecued her head!”? While listening to the entire album, I couldn’t help but smile; that’s when you know you’ve got a great piece of work on your hands.

Regardless of your religion, you should find more than a few enjoyable moments on O Holy Night. As far as Christmas albums go, it is undoubtedly one of the best I’ve ever heard. However, any fan of straight-up, no-bullshit rock music and excellent vocals should listen to this, pronto. And it’s just in time for the holiday season.

~ Dan

Josh Caterer was in the Smoking Popes before his conversion to Christianity. Duvall is the fruits of that. This is, I believe, the second full length from the band (among several eps).

I view Christmas releases from alternative rock bands with more than a hint of suspision. Almost all of them are slop-shod butcherings. They invarriably see it as thier mission to be a band recording a rock christmas cd (or track) instead of a rock band recording a christmas cd (or, again, track). They end just cranking the songs out, pushing the bounderies of speed and distortion. And heaven forbid they ever use more than three bar chords in a song!

So it's refereshing to hear a rock band do a Christmas cd where it sounds like they actually took time to arrange the song and record it to fit them AND the song. This isn't Duvall rock Christmas album, this is a Duvall Christmas album. And because Duvall is a rock band, the songs reflect that but don't dominate it.

The best song of the lot "Do You Hear What I Hear." It starts off with guitar and builds from there. There are echoes of different voices on the ends of the main lines (Do you hear what I hear, what i hear, what i hear) that are effective because they feature different vocalists.

The worst song of the lot kicks the cd off in the form of "Angels We Have Heard On High." The song it's self is rather bland, and Duvall's arrangement doesn't help it any. It is the song that most fails to do what I outlined above about not making a rock christmas song.

After that, though, the following three songs are fantastic and, indeed, the rest of the album i really good. I recommend it for those looking for a good Christmas album.

~ Sir Theory