REVIEW: BEN FOLDS - SLEIGHER

4/5

Five Have A Wonderful Christmas. 

Never folding, it's barely been a year since Ben Folds showed us 'What Matters Most' with the Ben Folds Five singer's solo album, but it's already that time of year again. Now this rock star gives us 'Sleigher' like it was all heavy metal. Playful and melancholy. Loving and longing. All for the best Christmas album since Norah Jones' dreamed of Christmas, and some outstanding originals to go next to the great American Christmas songbook album standards. "Christmas is constant", Ben Folds tells us, and over the last few like WHAM, everyone has been getting in on the act. From 'A Legendary Christmas' from John Legend, who has just released a children's album with Sufjan Stevens, to Bill Murray getting lost in translation with Sofia Coppola again, in another high-end hotel for 'A Very Murray Christmas'. No Scrooged humbug.

And now, 'Sleepwalking Through Christmas', and a new classic, following the instrumental number of 'Little Drummer Bolero', an animated Ben Folds is walking his dog through a cartoon Christmas night that greets you like a card on the album cover, carrying a bag of poop...because this is as real as it gets. Even if he creatively, not shamelessly, enlists the help of A.I. to write a funky 'Xmas Aye Eye' number before the Yuletide 'You Don't Have To Be A Santa Claus', with sleigh bells and cicadas ringing in the dead of night background. There are no better lyrics than the ones rolling with 'Me and Maurice', mind you, as Ben tends to lyrics like, "Christmas Eve/A silver blanket spreads into the night/Distant sounds of bells and laughter/Plastic joy and light/Past floor plan variations/More or less the same/I walk Maurice/And a full green bag of shame/Giant inflatable Santa Clauses/Smile and wave/As we head back through the snow/Through the dark and down the lane." There's that poop we were telling you about. No shame. This is the s###!

Lindsey Kraft helps make 'We Could Have This'. Whilst 'The Christmas Song' covers a great single, with a sweet lyric video for the animated Folds. 'Waiting For Snow' in this holiday mix of new songs and reimagined classics, the Christmas spirit will come to you, right now. Even with the pumpkins still on your porch and in your lattes. Smashing, singing along to the 'Christmas Time Rhyme' like, "Christmas morning, in the back of the old family Ford/With my feet dangling, wondering when they might grow to the floor/Pumpkin pie wrapped in foil/And gifts wrapped in newspaper, ringing the bell of my grandmother's door." It's one and the same. Like the nostalgia of family, this warm and fond season, that has no eve. And for all of those not feeling it this year, like 'The Bell That Couldn't Jingle', we understand. But just listen to "and Santa said, Jack Frost will bring my Christmas gift to you/And on Christmas Eve you'll jingle, just like you were brand new." You will too. This Tiny Tim doesn't need to tell you what day it is. Ben does. Through the lens of Christmas, all we have lost over these years...and all we still hold close. Wrapped a little tighter. To you and yours. We wish you a merry one, and a new year of happiness. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Sleepwalking Through Christmas', 'The Christmas Song', 'Xmas Aye Eye'.

Spin This: Norah Jones - 'I Dream Of Christmas'