2 keepers
keeper avg .286
The EP kicks off with the strongest track,"Just Like Christmas"****, a meditation on the visceral feeling of the holiday set on a jaunty sleigh-ride; though it only has a couple short verses and one chord progression the feeling Mimi evokes with her voice and percussion if potent. Low's version of "Little Drummer Boy"**** is equally powerful, with Alan and Mimi's vocals and a lone snare drenched in cavernous reverb over a funeral drone (I've read it was in a Gap commercial though I don't think I ever saw it). "Silent Night," the other Christmas carol, is performed with appropriate modesty and like most of Low's work, some melancholy. Melancholy also permeates "Taking Down The Tree", which ends the album, its melodies as tenuous and fragile and "Christmastime Is Here," and the biblical "Long Way Around The Sea" is almost a murder ballad. Mimi also delivers a sweet version of Elvis's (and many others') "Blue Christmas" and both balance well on "If You Were Born Today," both of which exemplify Low's "slow-core" label.
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