This is an original British punk-era band that has essentially persisted to the present day under the auspices of original lead singer and songwriter David Philip, though it's been an L.A.-based band since about 1987. After trickling a couple of holiday cuts out over the years, Philip decided to sit down and write an entire ceedee's worth of holiday tunes, and this 2007 album is the result. The whole shebang started out with "Peace on Earth," a midtempo rocker featuring former Sex Pistol Steve Jones on guitar. This has been around for a while but I'm just finally hearing it, and it's definitely a holiday single. There's really not much of the punk sneer about this album -- it's simply a hard-rocking ode to the holiday season. I don't know if Philip has any second thoughts about having two different songs titled "Ring Out Your Christmas Bells" and "Let the Bells Ring Out For Christmas," but then I'm probably the only one who will notice. "Come On Santa, Hand it Over" is a nice uptempo rocker, echoing "Father Christmas" in that there's a stickup involving Santa in the chorus. There's also two versions of the previously released rocker "Merry Christmas." Note to iTunes purchasers: half the song titles were mixed up when I downloaded the full album from there; I've linked the album art to Amazon, but you may wish to check that anyway.
The Last Noel, The Automatics (Dork)
This is an original British punk-era band that has essentially persisted to the present day under the auspices of original lead singer and songwriter David Philip, though it's been an L.A.-based band since about 1987. After trickling a couple of holiday cuts out over the years, Philip decided to sit down and write an entire ceedee's worth of holiday tunes, and this 2007 album is the result. The whole shebang started out with "Peace on Earth," a midtempo rocker featuring former Sex Pistol Steve Jones on guitar. This has been around for a while but I'm just finally hearing it, and it's definitely a holiday single. There's really not much of the punk sneer about this album -- it's simply a hard-rocking ode to the holiday season. I don't know if Philip has any second thoughts about having two different songs titled "Ring Out Your Christmas Bells" and "Let the Bells Ring Out For Christmas," but then I'm probably the only one who will notice. "Come On Santa, Hand it Over" is a nice uptempo rocker, echoing "Father Christmas" in that there's a stickup involving Santa in the chorus. There's also two versions of the previously released rocker "Merry Christmas." Note to iTunes purchasers: half the song titles were mixed up when I downloaded the full album from there; I've linked the album art to Amazon, but you may wish to check that anyway.
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