The Holiday Sounds of Josh Rouse, Josh Rouse (Yep Roc)

Josh is an indie-rock singer-songwriter who's made a pretty good career out of producing records with the warm sounds of the singer-songwriter heyday of the early-mid 1970s. Interestingly, he relocated to Spain sometime in the past 15 years and has become pretty well known over there. For 2019, he brings his songwriter's pen and nine new songs to this fine collection of new holiday tunes. (If you purchase through his label, there's a bonus EP available with a few covers, including "All I Want For Christmas," "Up On the Housetop," and "Let It Snow," along with a few demos for the new record.) Things start promisingly with the bouncy "Mediterranean X-Mas," and move quickly onto the meditative "Red Suit," the jazzy shuffle "New York Holiday," the snappy "Easy Man," the nostalgic "Sleigh Brother Bill," the New Year's story "Lights of Town," the Chris Isaak homage "Letters in the Mailbox," the deceptively uptempo "Holiday Heartbreak," and album closer "Christmas Songs," a tribute to those that came before this album. Hopefully, some future singer-songwriter will cite tunes from this album when he or she gets around to writing a similar song years from now. It's worth remembering.