Artist: Over the Rhine
Album Title: Snow Angels
Genre/Style: Pop
Release Year: 2007
I listened to Over the Rhine’s Snow Angels on the advice of Kim Long. To put it as simply as I can, this is a depressing album. It is sick with virulent, contagious melancholy. One must be very careful when exposed to this kind of music not to be overcome and stay in bed for a week. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. Not all of the songs are like that, but this is far from a celebratory record. It ain’t party music.
Songwriter Linford Detweiler has taken on the task of tweaking familiar seasonal tropes, but the end result is less a collection of fractured Christmas songs than a concept album that happens to take place at Christmas. “Here It Is”, for example, comes off like a Larson-esque Broadway showstopper, while “Little Town” turns “O Little Town of Bethlehem” into a plea for Mideast peace. Loneliness is a recurrent thread running throughout, even on seemingly upbeat songs like “Snowed In with You” (if you’re snowed in, then you’re trapped and can’t leave me). They’re good songs, well performed, but the cumulative impact is pretty harsh.
Rating: 
It’s too bleak to make it into my holiday rotation, but it’s worth a listen if you want to wallow in the winter blues for awhile.
