(2020) Murder By Death - Lonesome Holiday          


Review:
Christmas music is probably deeper, heavier and more nuanced than it gets credit for. Sure, there’s the eye-roll-inducing sing-a-alongs that exist for a quick hit of serotonin, but there’s also the material that deals with isolation, longing and despair, and on the other end of the spectrum, thankfulness, joy and appreciation. At first glance, Murder By Death, a band known for ominous tones and cutting songwriting, might not seem to fit the Christmas album mold, but it makes sense that they could capture the lightning of a season with crushing emotional weight. And that’s what they did on the 11-song album, Lonesome Holiday, a collection of standards, covers and a few originals. “We knew it was going to be a strange Christmas for everybody, so we were like, let’s do a somber holiday record that fits the mood of the year,” said singer/guitarist Adam Turla. Lonesome Holiday isn’t here to provide a jolt of festive spirit — it recognizes the gloom that can cast its shadow over the winter season, and the doom and isolation caused by COVID-19 continuing its brutal course. The album also acknowledges the positives, but it doesn’t lean into escapism or shy away from reality. “Murder By Death kind of touches on these big feelings, we don’t do a lot of middle ground kind of material,” Turla said. “That’s sort of the concept of this band, big stuff — really dark, really sad, really joyous.” The band initially recorded a couple of Christmas songs as demos about half a decade ago, but shelved them. After recently reworking those songs, filling them out with more depth, they turned them into the layered and rich songs on Lonesome Holiday. And then, after they were looking for a project during the pandemic, Murder By Death started writing and recording more holiday music, rounding a seed of an idea into a full-length record with such classics as “Blue Christmas” and covers including Lindsey Buckingham’s “Holiday Road.” “I didn’t want to work on an album of new material because we were still enjoying touring on The Other Shore, and it was a fan favorite, so it was like, let’s not do a regular record, let’s do something we never would have done,” Turla said. Originally formed in Bloomington, Indiana and now based in Louisville, Murder By Death has released eight records of originals — first, 2002’s Like The Exorcist, But More Breakdancing and most recently 2018’s The Other Shore. Spearheaded by Turla and cello player Sarah Balliet, Murder By Death have established themselves as a fiercely independent rock band with a cult following. And that artistic freedom has led to experimental projects such as Lonesome Holiday. They’ve also recorded similar projects, such as a series of covers records that are available to patrons of their Kickstarter page, which sometimes funds their original albums. Turla said the covers projects keep things fresh with the band, and it also makes them all better musicians. “We’ve all become better players by doing these Kickstarter covers albums,” he said. “They each have like 15 tracks on them, and they’re everything from jazz to metal to folk rock. We cover everything from Megadeth to Leonard Cohen on those things. It keeps you learning and what’s making these songs the way they are.”





Track Listing:
1.I'll Be Home For Christmas 02:47
2.Blue Christmas 02:09
3.Holiday Road 02:15
4.My Evergreen 02:04
5.It's Christmas Time (Part 1) 03:30
6.Christmas (Please Baby Come Home) 02:45
7.Let's Get Tight 02:03
8.Meli Kalikimaka 03:06
9.The Woodshed 03:23
10.O Holy Night 03:34
11.Happy New Year 03:14


Media Report:
Genre: americana
Country: USA
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits


Note: If you like the music, support the artist