My Morning Jacket Does Xmas Fiasco Style, My Morning Jacket (Darla)

I have to admit I'm unfamiliar with these guys though I've seen their name mooted about for a few years now, but they're still a rising rock band as of 2011. Member Jim Jones is also known for his membership in Monsters of Folk and for a solo EP of George Harrison covers. This 2003 EP (excuse the outdated terminology, but that's what I'm used to calling a six-cut mini-album of this kind) only has one rocked-out tune, the Elvis Presley tune "Santa Claus Is Back In Town," and it's more of a slow shuffle. The other tunes are fairly downtempo but sincere evocations of the holiday. "I Just Wanted To Say" would be at home as part of a David Lynch Christmas special, with a tempo more easily computed with a calendar than a metronome. "New Morning," a Nick Cave tune, doesn't sound particularly Christmas oriented, though the sentiment jibes with the other songs. "Xmas Curtain" also appears on their At Dawn album, and it's a pretty cryptic musing on "criminals who never break the law." "Xmas Time Is Here Again" is more conventionally Merry Christmasy, mostly acoustic guitar with a little electric guitar picking bass notes in the background. Oh, and there's a "Bonus Track," just seven minutes of doodling over a descending figure ripped from the previous song. Took a while, but it grew on me. Found it on the now-defunct Sony Connect, although there was a short run of CDs back in the day and there's a possibility of a vinyl version for 2011.