I have waxed worshipful about Slim Cessna's Auto Club in these pages so often now that it almost makes me embarrassed of the large portrait of the man I have had tattooed on the inside of each of my eyelids. Further, I already extolled the virtues of his secondary band, the Blackstone Valley Sinners, and their previous release, It's A Sin. Now they've gone and released a Christmas album. I can only assume Slim is pushing to see whether or not there's a genre he plays that I won't enjoy. Well, tough luck, Slim. You ain't found it yet. The mix of tracks follows the same pattern as the Sinners' previous effort. Guitarist Rich Gilbert has penned a couple of country-swing instrumentals. The first, "Hay", opens the album on a not-particularly-Christmassy note, and while the second is entitled "Santa Swing", without the titular and contextual cues the listener would have no particular reason to characterize it as a holiday track. Once again, Cessna and Gilbert have teamed up to write a new country classic (the excellent "Katie Dang"). The difference, this time, is one of proportion: the disc's other nine tracks are covers of Christmas songs, both familiar and less so. The covers, as you'd expect, run the gamut of holiday performers past, from the Hank Cochran-penned "Gift of the Blues" (made semi-famous by Loretta Lynn) to the unavoidable schmaltz of "Jingle Bell Rock" (here made far more enjoyable as a mostly-instrumental that shows off Messrs. Gilbert and Cessna's enviable guitar technique), to "C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S" (which I'm willing to bet is virtually unlistenable when rendered by anyone else, though Cessna's over-the-top gospel sensibility makes it work). The album's centerpiece, and longest track, is a cover of Harry Belafonte's "Mary's Boy Child", which unfortunately errs a bit too far in the direction of childish sing-along to remain enjoyable throughout its six-minute running time. The closer, however, is a mind-scrambler. After a searing guitar opening, during which Rich Gilbert reminds us that his day job is playing guitar with Frank Black, Cessna launches into a jaunty reading of the Josˇ Feliciano cheese-classic "Feliz Navidad". When the band reaches the chorus, the intro's guitar returns, propelling a song I thought I could go my whole life without hearing again into a frenetic must-hear. The chimes don't hurt either... ...In the spirit this, the coldest and bleakest time of the year, you owe it to yourself to spread a little inappropriate-for-the-season cheer.
-- Brett McCallon