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I always hear people say, Christmas is coming earlier and earlier each year, but let's be honest it's always on the 25th December. I'm kidding of course and I know what they mean, it will not be long and the shops in your local town will be full of Christmas Trees, decorations, sparkling lights, jars full of sweets and chocolates and of course shelf after shelf of the latest must have toys. I'm getting excited just thinking about it.
So to my surprise I arrived home recently to find delivered onto my door mat was the new album Bethlehem Skyline Vol...
Read More I always hear people say, Christmas is coming earlier and earlier each year, but let's be honest it's always on the 25th December. I'm kidding of course and I know what they mean, it will not be long and the shops in your local town will be full of Christmas Trees, decorations, sparkling lights, jars full of sweets and chocolates and of course shelf after shelf of the latest must have toys. I'm getting excited just thinking about it.
So to my surprise I arrived home recently to find delivered onto my door mat was the new album Bethlehem Skyline Vol 2, a Christmas album full of unsurprisingly Christmas songs, sung by some of the best bands and singers in the Christian music world, including Downhere, Jason Gray, Andrew Peterson, Me in Motion and Lanae Hale.
The first volume of Bethlehem Skyline was released in 2007 with a mixture of covers of classic well known Christmas songs and a selection of new songs written especially for the project by the participating artist. The album from 2007 spawned a large multi artist tour around America, which had rave reviews in the media. Bethlehem skyline Vol 2's setup is very similar to its previous release. Volume 2 is also full of classic Christmas anthems and some original written songs, as they say, don't fix what isn't broken.
The first track that jumped out to me from looking at the track-listing was the second song, Me In Motion doing a cover of the Brenda Lee's hit Rocking Around The Christmas Tree and this was my first point of call for listening to the album. And what a great version of the song it is, Me In Motion adding their own unique style of rock to the track and making it their own, it made me smile straight away, Christmas had arrived.
The other two eye catching songs for myself were Silent Night which is performed by Downhere and Little Drummer Boy by Matt Papa. This version of Silent Night is one of the best versions of that song that I have ever heard (and there have been plenty of other versions around), sung gently and with care not to change too much of the song, this could be the perfect version. Little Drummer Boy is a rockier version of this Christmas original, something different that I wasn't expecting, but a good account by the talented Matt Papa.
Lanae Hale adds two tracks to this collection, one is a cover of the amazing Carol Of The Bells and one track that was self penned called Starving Artist Christmas. Carol of The Bells was used in the film 'Home Alone' and always reminds me of that film which always seem to be on TV during the Christmas holidays. Lanae's vocals are amazing on both tracks, adding her own vocal style to each song, but for me Carol of Bells has to be one of the standout tracks.
Christmas is coming people, and this is the perfect album to get you in the mood, play it while opening presents on the big day, or at dinner or even beforehand while putting up your tree and decorations. The album has 14 stunning tracks with amazing covers of classic songs recorded with top quality from some of the best artist around at the moment. There are some standout moments on this album, that capture the magic of Christmas, yet also captures something more important than that, the real meaning of Christmas.
Review by Jono Davies
LTTM Rating 4.5 out of 5 Stars
Standout tracks
Carol of The Bells
Silent Night
Rocking Around The Christmas Tree
