As Christmas approaches each year, holiday albums sprout from the ground like rancid weeds. This season, look for Monster Ballad Xmas, which includes Christmas carols performed by Queensryche, Dokken, Skid Row, FireHouse and Twisted Sister. Speaking of Twisted, the Sisters have released the DVD “A Twisted Christmas: Live” and Trans Siberian Orchestra are pushing some new crap single on iTunes called “Wizards in Winter.”
However, Christmas Rock Records, seems to be approaching Christ’s birthday with tongue firmly in devilish cheek. The company has just released three spirited new discs in a series called Wreck The Halls, which transmogrify timeless metal and rock music into bell-jangling, synth-infused instrumental ditties that wouldn’t sound out of place booming over a shopping mall PA system.
The first, …And Christmas For All: A Holiday Tribute to Metallica, features 10 interpretations of thrash and anthemic metal classics, including “Master of Puppets,” “Battery,” “One,” “The Unforgiven,” “Fade to Black” and “Nothing Else Matters.”
Additional yuletide jeer comes in the form of Hell’s Bells of Christmas: The Holiday Tribute to AC/DC, which is merrier and more sprightly — custom made for a tinsel-decorated elevator. The album includes joyous keyboard renderings of “You Shook Me All Night Long,” “Back in Black” “Moneytalks,” “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap,” “Highway to Hell,” “Big Balls” and others.
Christmas Rock Records has also released The Green Days of Christmas: The Holiday Tribute to Green Day. The company is the sister label of Rockabye Baby!, which has issued instrumental rock lullaby albums of music by Metallica, U2, The Beatles, Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead and others, which may also be suitable for parents with infants that dig rocking in a winter wonderland.
