Twisted Sister – A Twisted Christmas
Razor & Tie (released 10/17/06)
Hard Rock/Christmas
While I’m not really a fan of the chaotic Christmas season, and find it to be one of the most contrived and phony phenomena in the human drama, I can’t deny my roots. Not only was I raised Pentecostal and used to go Christmas caroling and the whole nine yards as a child, but my birthday happens to fall on Dec. 25, and as part of my brithday parties we also had to sing Christmas carols, so I’ve still got all of the songs burned into my brain whether I like it or not.
For the most part, I only like the classic Christmas tracks performed by classic musicians (Bing Crosby, Burl Ives, Frank Sinatra, Vince Guaraldi, et al.). I could give two shits and/or a rat’s ass about any Christmas music offerings from artists like Mariah Carey or the New Radicals, and gimmicky albums like Christmas on Death Row are way too cheesy to sit through for more than a track or two (although one can certainly find it amusing to find a Christmas album sporting the “Parental Advisory” label). Bob Rivers is okay in small doses, but again… too much cheese, unless you’re a fan of the Weird Al genre. However, there have been a select few Christmas albums over the past few years that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed, including albums by The Brian Setzer Orchestra, Los Straitjackets, and Squirrel Nut Zippers. Trans-Siberian Orchestra also rules by bringing a perfect mix of metal and classical to Christmas classics.
So when I saw that Twisted Sister had a Christmas album out, I just had to give it a shot. That, and because I wanted to know how a guy who sang “Burn in Hell” was going to approach songs about Jesusâ€â€and for another reason, specified in the next paragraph. I had very low expectations, and assumed that it was going to be terrible, and I would either end up throwing it out the window or microwaving it at work to show everyone how cool it looks when you microwave a CD [EDITOR’S NOTE: Please do NOT try that at home, kids, as it can ruin the microwave and make all of Mom and Dad’s food taste like burning].
The set kicks off with Dee Snider singing an acoustic karaoke rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, before the electric guitar and drums kick in, and it’s actually not bad. It’s pretty much unchanged, and is just a metal-ed up version of the original, which works well, surprisingly. “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” was one of the main reasons that I had to get the album, because someone somewhere brought up sometime last year that “We’re Not Gonna Take It” totally apes “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”. I had to go home and listen to the two back-to-back, and it was even painfully obvious when listening to Twisted Sister vs. the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, so, obviously Dee Snider wanted to beat everyone to the punch before anyone else started chattering about that one. It’s quite possibly the first mash-up that’s not really a mash-up at all. It also has a quick bit of “Hava Nagilah” at the end, to stay politically correct, or possibly whimsical.
“White Christmas” is surprisingly not cheesy, as Snider can hit all the right notes, and the music is not too hard as to drown out the vocals or lose the original charm. Also, the use of a guitar solo in a Christmas song = spectacular.
While most of the songs are almost identical to the original compositions, the band does some minor tweaking to put their own spin on a lot of them, mostly in the beginning of each song. The drum-heavy intro to “Silver Bells” and the cowbell in the aforementioned “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”, are great, and the intro to “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow” is just the bee’s knees. Most metal-heads would be fooled enough to start head-banging to it, only to realize that they’re head-banging to “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow”. Seeing that happen would make my day.
Old school Twisted Sister fans should certainly pick this up if they haven’t already, as Snider’s voice is still exactly as it was in 1986. In fact, open-minded fans of Christmas music who don’t happen to be fans of Twisted Sister should pick this up, too, as it really is loads of fun. Those of you who wanted an original composition will not get it on here, but should still be happy with the metal elements, not to mention the revamped version of “Twelve Days of Christmas”. Titled “Heavy Metal Christmas”, it replaces turtle doves, golden rings, and a partridge in a pear tree with things like pentagrams, quarts of Jack, and skull earrings. Speaking of pentagrams and Jesus again… most of the songs are more secular standards, with “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” being the only exception on the album, and we already figured out why that’s on here.
Die-hard blacker-than-thou metal-heads will more than likely scoff at this album, but it’s actually a solid peace of work by a band that most of us figured was done with its career and might have phoned in a few tribute tracks to Cleopatra before calling it quits again. Buy this album if you need something to play for your Christmas party, because everyone will love you, and beautiful women will sleep with you.
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