Legendary rockers Bride have made their contribution to the ever expanding collection of rock and metal bands performing Christmas songs.
For those who have never heard of Bride, the Christian rock band was formed back in the 1980’s by brothers Troy and Dale Thompson, getting their first break opening up for the Daniel Band in Pennsylvania in 1986. For those not familiar with Christian rock that may not mean anything, but Daniel Band was big at the time. As one might imagine in the near 40yrs of existence, the band underwent many lineup and label changes, but now without success as to their credit the band has 8 major releases, 12 songs that hit #1 in various charts and 4 Dove awards to their credit.
Christmas albums can be hit or miss and many times it really depends on how much you like a particular band as to whether or not you think their renditions of classic songs are just a novelty or something really good. Personally, the Rottweiler Records Fleas Naughty Dog, volume 1 is one of my all-time favorite collection of Christmas songs, but much of that is due to variety of approaches taken as everything from punk to goth to black metal is contained in that release. Fro single artists releases, the August Burns Red Sleddin’ Hill is another that is really well done. As you might imagine, since it is taking me so long to actually get to talking about this release, it is not one of my favorites, but in all fairness, I’m not a Bride fan either, so that makes this more of a challenge.
“Carol of the Bells” opens up the album with a nice string arrangement that abruptly gives way to a metal guitar and drums rendition of the track. The bells come back before the verse begins and the vocals initially are largely group in nature with different parts being taken by different vocalists but all mostly in a somewhat gruff, raspy metal style vocal with some higher register screams in the background at one point. Overall the track is ok but sounds a bit like many other renditions that have been done over the years, and I think that is my overall feeling about the album. Performances are good, production is good, but the approach taken to me feels a bit rushed.
“Oh Holy Night”, is mostly traditional in structure but as if performed by a regular band instead of a choir. In stark contrast, “We Three Kings” opens up with a metal riff that is largely unrecognizable with respect to the traditional arrangement and it just doesn’t work for me. “What Child is This” starts out with the traditional arrangement before shifting toward hard rock for the end of the song and I struggle with the Axl Rose-like vocals in the song. The band takes a mellow and heavy approach to “Do You Hear What I Hear” with the mellow version being largely acoustic instruments, and the heavy version opening with a guitar riff not unlike “Walk this Way” (Aerosmith). Throughout the rest of the album the general approach is to start out with a traditional arrangement and at some point shift to a rock arrangement and I think the after a couple tracks, it all becomes too predictable. That being said, the album closes with a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” which interestingly is performed with primarily a string arrangement and a good use of the different vocal stylings from the band.
All in all, for Bride fans, this may be something you’ll look forward to playing every year during the Christmas season, but for the casual listener, the arrangements are such that it becomes easy to start skipping tracks.
Rating: 6/10
Written by John Jackson
Tracklisting:
- Caroll Of The Bells
- Oh Holy Night
- We The Kings
- What Child Is This?
- Do You Hear What I Hear (mellow)
- Silent Night (Luke Easter of Tourniquet Sings Third Verse)verse)
- Angels We Have Heard On High
- Hark The Herald Angels Sing
- Oh Come All Ye Faithful
- Do You Hear What I Hear (heavy)
- All People Blessed
- Hall Of The Mountain King
- Pachabell’s Canon
- Hallelujah
Band Members
Dale Thompson – vocals
Troy Thompson – guitars
Nenel Lucena – bass guitar
Alexandre Aposan – drums
Release Date: Oct. 29th. 2021
Record Label: Independent
Order Here at Nordic Mission
Video (audio) for ‘Silent Night’
Video (audio) for ‘We Three Kings’
Sample video for ‘Carol of the Bells’
Sample video for ‘We Three Kings’
