The amount of worthless Christmas music released has dramatically increased in recent years. It seems like every auto-tuned pop singer and mediocre adult alternative band has released at least one, if not more, Christmas albums. While I enjoy old Christmas music as much as the next guy (A Charlie Brown Christmas, December, New England Christmastide I & II, and The Nutcracker, among others, will never die) but instrumental jazz, classical, and folk versions of Christmas songs can only carry your Christmas spirit so far. There are some single song released Christmas music from modern indie rock bands that are excellent, Belle and Sebastian, Starflyer 59, and Pedro the Lion come to mind, and even Sufjan Stevens’ epic collection Songs For Christmas is good for a occasional listen, but there is one Christmas album that is indispensable to me in the month of December: Low’s EP Christmas.

A longish EP at nearly 30 minutes, Christmas is a somewhat lightened up version of Low’s classic dark and dreamy sound on 5 original Christmas tracks and 3 traditional tunes. The opening track (“Just Like Christmas”) is the most upbeat track on the EP and it seems positively pop compared to most of Low’s other work, which never goes much faster than a funeral dirge. A programmed organic beat opens the track and atmospheric yet playful and jazzy piano are the background to Mimi Parker’s gorgeous vocals. Throughout the album Parker and Alan Sparhawk trade vocal duties, sometimes it’s Parker taking the lead like on “Just Like Christmas” “One Special Gift” and “Blue Christmas” while at other times Sparhawk sings lead as with “Long Way Around the Sea” and “Taking Down the Tree” and at still other times, Parker and Sparhawk share lead harmonizations and this is where Christmas finds it’s high points. The individual vocal lead tracks are excellent, but there is something truly magical in songs where vocal duties are shared. Covers of traditional songs “Little Drummer Boy” and “Silent Night” benefit the most from these harmonies, sounding divine and meaningful, the latter especially, sounds about at as close as humans can get to what Angel’s holy invocations would be, and it is all done with nothing more than a toned-down acoustic guitar and voices creating a bleak and empty song that is as bone chilling as a December night. “Little Drummer Boy” on the other hand, is full of sound; not necessarily instruments but sound. Throughout the song a constant drone of ambient noise flows while far off drums in the style of Parker’s signature minimalist style pound out a relentless beat. The whole effect of the song is one of sleepwalking, or at least dreaming. If the little drummer boy dreamed of meeting Jesus and playing his drum for him, this is what it would sound like.

The whole album is rich with organic (and orgasmic) soundscapes and harmonies that seem like a lightened up version of Low’s pioneering sound, there aren’t any huge walls of distortion here, as Low’s fans are accustomed to hearing, in fact there’s no distortion at all. Low has cleaned up their sound a bit, which is a good thing and a bad thing. Good because it suits the nature of Christmas songs, and bad because who wouldn’t want to hear Christmas songs played in a Low-at-their-most-intense sound? Not that Low is ever traditionally “intense”, but the point is there regardless. In the end, the safer sound works perfectly and Low’s Christmas present to the world isn’t one you’re going to want to return or exchange.