Gift Wrapped Vols. 1-3, various artists (A Few Good Records)

Imagine my surprise when, during my expedition into the recent history of Warner Records' Gift Wrapped series of compilations, I pulled up Volume 3 of this New Jersey indie rock label's similarly named series of holiday EPs instead of the Warners Vol. 3 I was looking for. Volume 1 dropped on Christmas Eve 2019 and features seven songs, starting with Backyard Superheroes' not-quite-ska "This Christmas" and proceeding into Calendar Year's "Noel Solitare," an uptempo cross between thrash and Britpop considering the nature of loneliness and the connection to the holiday. Emotional Transporter gives us the punk tribute "We Are Santa's Elves," Love, Rose comes back with a cover of "Little Saint Nick" similarly punked out, and Jake and the Nowhere performs "Christmastime in New Jersey," a drunken recitation of the state's place names with a bit of holiday nostalgia thrown in. Grey Goes Black goths up Wham's "Last Christmas" and TEDxDANCESøN wraps things up with "A VERY MERRY TEXxMas," a clattery symphony for guitars and synths. Volume 2, from 2020, kicks off with Ed Allison's fairly faithful Fall Out Boy cover, "Yule Shoot Your Eye Out," followed by Fit the Bill's midtempo acoustic pop-rocker "Snow & Mistletoe," Grey Goes Black returns with a slowed-down cover of "Christmastime Is Here," and TEDxDANCESøN gives us a synth-pop cover of My Chemical Romance's "Every Snowflake Is Different (Just Like You)." Blue Vines resurrects Tom Petty for three minutes with a poppier take on "Christmas All Over Again," and TH Speedball wraps things up with the synth-pop "Santa Claus (Ho Ho Hoin')," a lost-love take on the holiday. Volume 3 starts with Pezh & Son Pat doing a fairly faithful version of "Last Christmas," Landon Defever covers Fountains of Wayne's "Valley Winter Song" in a more indie-pop way, Vater Boris offers "Silent Night Manic Night" in a version that starts as a drone and ends as a surf instrumental, and Todd Barriage does "If La Dispute Made Christmas Music," a reference to the hardcore band, although as I've never heard that band I'm missing the gag, as this is a Christmas-themed monologue laid over a decent cover of "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)." These are all download and streaming; the individual links above are to Amazon, but if you click the cover you can access them all on Bandcamp.