Sleeping At Last is the d/b/a name for the musical endeavors of one Ryan O'Neil, and has been since 1999, according to Wikipedia. Some of these songs have turned up on other collections, like this year's Paste Magazine holiday sampler and The Sounds Of Christmas Volume 2. I'm not familiar with this act's past work, but this is a fairly sedate folk-pop grouping of 11 familiar carols and one original song, "Snow," a rather nice piano-led ballad of holiday hope. The rest of the album is well done but not particularly notable, although we give props for what is the first cover I've heard of "Christmas Is All Around," the retinseled Troggs song that was featured in the movie "Love, Actually." It's a folky rendition rather than the classic rock approach of the original. But it's free from NoiseTrade, so there's no penalty for checking it out for yourself. UPDATE: A new song has been added each year since this originally came out; 2013's song was "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," 2014's song was "O Come O Come Emanuel," and 2015's song is "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)."
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