By Kyle Francis
If you’re interested in earning extra money, all you have to do is compile a holiday album. It’s easier than it sounds, the secret is as simple as getting a few bands to actually record versions of holiday classics and fill out the rest of the album with random songs using bells or mentioning the word ‘Christmas.’ This approach undoubtedly spawned Warcon’s frighteningly uneven compilation, Taste of Christmas.
The album features some perfectly fine versions of the classics, especially My American Heart’s “The First Noel” and Amped’s “We Three Kings.” The difficulty lies in the out-of-place nature of most of the album, featuring a series of depressing punk & alt-rock songs with no connection to the holiday season. This unfortunate state gives rise to musical abortions like From First To Last’s “Christmassacre”–including the lyric “Santa Claus is dead”–and Opiate for the Masses’ “Christmas Evel.”
Taste of Christmas will likely be as welcome at Christmas as a lump of coal stuffed in your stocking but at least the coal can be used as a doorstop.