Title: Wintersong
Primary Artist: Sarah McLachlan
Essential Tracks: "Song for a Winter's Night," "Wintersong," and "Silent Night."
Producer: Pierre Marchand
Label: ARISTA Records
Running Time: 45:39
It's no secret in the recording world that Sarah McLachlan has one of the best vocal instruments of our time. But let me add to this: She has one of the best vocal instruments of our time when she wants to use it. Although she gives some breathtaking performances on her new Christmas album, Wintersong, most of the songs on the album feel as though she just didn't want to exercise her vocal cords to their full potential. This, coupled with some bad arrangements of classic songs, leads to a merely decent album.
The album opens on a very appropriate note with her cover of the John Lennon classic "Happy Xmas (War is Over)." Although she sings the song in a more serious tone than the dearly departed probably intended, it serves as an excellent opening to the album, and the addition of a children's choir is brilliant. From here, we are forced to sit through her version of "What Child is This? (Greensleeves)." Though her lilting voice does bring a haunting air to the piece, she is performing an arrangement that seems to have left the melody out; it’s not the "What Child is This?" that we all know and could sing along to. It sounds as though she arranged it and just decided to write only the alto line. She took too many liberties with an already haunting and beautiful piece.
However, after sitting through that, we are rewarded with her version of Joni Mitchell's "River." I have to confess, I've heard both the original and the Linda Ronstadt versions of this song, and never liked either of them. Then I heard Sarah McLachlan's version, and now it makes sense. McLachlan puts the needed emotion into the piece that previous vocalists neglected. This song was correctly selected as the single from this album.
Next up is her original piece and the album's title track, "Wintersong." This is the song for true Sarah McLachlan fans. Here she gets back to her roots, with simple piano and soft, sentimental lyrics. It is quite melancholy, but it brings a different air to Christmas music than many other songs out there. It may take time, but I foresee this song becoming an eventual classic. After "Wintersong," we hear fairly simple versions of "I'll Be Home for Christmas" and "O Little Town of Bethlehem." Though there isn't really much to say about these, she does demonstrate that she can arrange and not trash the songs. These are simple, classic, and quite lovely.
After those two tracks comes the song that I think caused me the most consternation, "The First Noel (Mary Mary)." I adore what she did in this arrangement. She melded together the folk "Mary Mary" with the classic "The First Noel," with the use of everything from harps to African drums, and it's fantastically done. However, she opens the track with a stunning almost-operatic chorus of "The First Noel" that shows off her range so perfectly I really just want her to keep doing that over and over. I think it would have been wise to record a classic version of just "The First Noel," simply because it's so beautiful.
Next are, in my opinion, the three best tracks on the album, "Silent Night," "Song for a Winter's Night," and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." These, like "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and "I'll Be Home for Christmas" show that McLachlan can do an excellent job of arranging when she wants to. She shows us her range beautifully on "Silent Night" and "Song for a Winter’s Night," and incorporates a big band style on "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" that, though a huge risk for her to take, she pulls off nicely. However, after this trio of beautiful songs, she delves back into things that are almost impossible to listen to. Her version of "In the Bleak Midwinter" is fairly traditional, but her vocal performance kills what would otherwise be a nice song. She arranged it so that it crosses her vocal breaking point constantly, and to the listener, hearing her go from singing well to ungracefully trying to hit notes that are too high gets old quick. The last song on the album, "Christmastime is Here," is even worse. You'll of course remember this song from A Charlie Brown Christmas, but don't expect Snoopy to make an appearance here. It is excessively slow and lacks the jazziness that made the song work for our bald-headed friend and his beagle. I personally think she should have left the song alone, but if it had to be on the album, it and "In the Bleak Midwinter" should have both been placed in the middle somewhere, and let the three or four good songs in the middle bring a nice ending to the album.
Overall, Wintersong captures the melancholy of winter and reminds us of the religious side of Christmas. Although there are some lackluster performances, it is an album worth at least one listen. I give it seven out of twelve candy apples.
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