Halford-Winter Songs

Metal God
2009

If there is one holiday that would seem to lend itself to metal it would be Halloween due to monsters, darkness and such as those topics often end up in metal songs. One holiday that doesn't seem to lend itself to metal is Christmas. Perhaps that was until TSO found a market in mixing metal with Christmas music. Although I would their output was mixed at best as far as quality goes. Then a few years ago Twisted Sister made a go at what was essentially a joke heavy metal Christmas album, but again it found an audience. So in the last couple of years there have been even more metal and hard rock bands attempting to cash in on a holiday that is already over-commercialized to begin with. So now Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford revives the Halford band name and attempts to crank out some holiday tinged tunes. The opener "Get into the spirit" had me thinking this might work out. Granted it sounds just like most other Halford tunes only with slightly holiday tinged lyrics. The next songs are traditional Christmas fare with "We Three Kings" and "Oh Come O Come Emanuel". I guess I would rather hear Halford sing these than any other metal singer, but really they are just alright versions. Next up is "Winter Song" which was originally done by Sara Bareilles. It's surprisingly spectacular with lush piano and acoustic guitars backing up Halford who hasn't this powerful in several years. "What Child Is This?’ is on next and it's above average and the band cuts loose a little more. The two tracks are "Christmas For Everyone" and "I Don’t Care" should be lumped together because are more pop oriented and neither works. Although "I don't care" is just weak, but "Christmas for everyone" is downright painful to tolerate. Fortunately "Light of the world" comes on helps my mood greatly towards this album. Another ballad and Halford's voice fits it perfectly. He seems to just glide through many of the other tracks, but when he cares enough he can still deliver as evidenced here. The album wraps up with two traditional Christmas songs "Oh Holy Night" and "Come All Ye Faithful". The first is just rather flat and I felt myself waiting for it to end. "Come all ye faithful" turns out a little better as Rob manages to elevate it with some solid vocals. All in all it's a mixed bag. To put it into a holiday perspective it's better than getting underwear and socks under the tree, but not nearly good as getting a race track or a football. There are some good tracks, some bad ones and a number of average tracks. I do kind of wish Halford had revived this band with an album full of originals more suited to the albums they did earlier this decade. Instead he decided to slap the name on a novelty album.