Wild Winter, Smoke Fairies (Full Time Hobby)

I've never heard of these women before now, but they're quite intriguing, sort of a cross between Lucius and The Raveonettes. And they've gone the full monty with a Christmas album for 2014. They're taking the "winter album" approach lest things get too holly jolly, going for the "bittersweet and wild" as they say in the press release from Rough Trade, which has the physical media, while Amazon (click the art) and iTunes get the digital trade. The title song evokes longing even as it's "21 degrees below," "Bad Good" is a garage-band ode to the rules of Santa Club, "Christmas Without a Kiss" is a fuzzy-guitar-led dirge to a search for love that just keeps building in intensity, "Three Kings" is another original, not the familiar carol, and "Steal Softly Thru Snow" almost swings into First Aid Kit-Secret Sisters territory. "Snowglobe Blizzard" is a suspenseful instrumental, "Give and Receive" briefly recalls the story of the child from a foreign land "who's coming to save us," "Circles in the Snow" is an uptempo ode to keeping the home fires, and "So Much Wine" lays on the synths to tell the story of an angry holiday breakup. This is quite the compelling collection of good original songs well performed, with a solid rock edge on even the most downtempo and contemplative numbers.