Trans-Siberian Orchestra-The Lost Christmas Eve, 2004

I avoided listening to these people for some time because my fear was they would be very stiff and longwinded with lots of Yngwie Malmsteen-like solos flying all around. However I was sitting in the waiting room of the dentist's office last week and saw them play two songs on Regis and Kelly. I liked the songs and picked up the CD for $9.99 at Wal-mart. Okay, it's better than I thought it might be and I have listened to it five times to determine what I really thought of it. There are some good musicians on this album and it shows. Largely the music, particularly on the instrumental songs is very well played without being overdone. The production is clear and sharp all throughout the album. I think the approach of doing many shorter tracks rather than a few longer ones was the right choice for this style of album. Now before you think I will get all gushy and say "God bless us every one", I am going to have play Scrooge here a minute. What I didn't like was I don't think all of the songs are exactly Christmas like in their sound. That may be nitpicking, but if it's a Christmas album then all of the songs should be on that theme and I didn't get that impression with every song here. That's a minor complaint though. My larger problems have to do with the vocals. The instrumental tracks were mostly way better than the songs with vocals. Jennifer Cella is obviously great on her two tracks as her vocals are actually better than the songs she is singing. I thought that Wendy Eggers' vocals on Queen of the night were fine and they fit with the song. So I am afraid that my problems are with the male vocalists here. I am not saying that they cannot sing, but rather their approach to the songs they did just didn't work for me. Oftentimes I felt the male vocals were either too dull or too over the top. None of them really impressed me with much range or feeling. I tried to listen to these songs several times hoping they would grow on me and that just didn't happen. Let's just say that if these had been the songs that I had heard in the dentist's office instead of the instrumentals then I would not have been inspired to buy the album. However there are certainly enough good tracks here and I have heard their first Christmas album was better than this. Overall a very ambitious effort with decent results.