I made a brief foray into the shopping centre on the way home from work today and hark! no carols. Tis now the ringing of cash registers that enlivens the corridors and aisles, although there wasn’t much of that going on either. I must’ve missed the rush 🙂

I’m not much a one for carols, especially when they are played in November, but I did find an album that got a few listens in the lead-up to Xmas Day: We Wish You a Merry Xmas. (Armoury/Riot)

This little beauty has 14 carols on it, all given varying degrees of metal treatment from some experts in the field.

Alice Cooper does Santa Claws (sic) is Coming to Town (Santa as a very spooky stalker, if not worse), Motorhead’s Lemmy does the gruff business on Run Rudolph Run, and Testament’s Chuck Billy produces a side-splitting thrash metal rendition of Silent Night.

There are some dull tunes, too, but the album ends on a high: O’ Christmas Tree by Doro Pesch and Auld Lang Syne sounding live and raw and slightly drunken thanks to Girlschool. Just the way Christmas should be!