Wonderlux: Wonderlux Presents Christmas Eve

516Oiuo5BbL._SS500

Videos by American Songwriter

Wonderlux
Wonderlux Presents Christmas Eve
(Wonderlux Music)
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Instrumental rock and roll Christmas albums are a rarity in the overstuffed turkey world of holiday music. Add surf, spaghetti western, lounge, and gangster film noir to that and you’ve narrowed the already slim category down to … well, this.

Wonderlux isn’t a band as much as an aggregation of musicians assembled by producer Brad Benedict (Big Bad Voodoo Daddy) and bassist/rhythm guitarist Michael Fontana (The Blue Hawaiians). Together they take some yuletide favorites such as “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and “O Holy Night” and drag them into a dingy, smoke filled night club where Santa Claus is private eye Philip Marlowe in disguise and Mrs. Claus is transformed into the sleazed out personification of the femme fatale from every 50s hard-boiled detective B movie.

They’ve hijacked Santa’s sled to the wrong side of town where the flickering neon lights are dim, the dames are loose and danger lurks behind every trash strewn corner. If the Sin City films took place during the last week of December, this would be their soundtrack. It’s a town without pity as the guitars turn the reverb up to 11, the drums pound looking for a lost wave and the kids are safely locked away from a world where elves aren’t welcome.

Song titles such as “Snowballs & Highballs” (loosely inspired by “Greensleeves”), “Yuletide Moon” (with bits of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” and “O Little Town of Bethlehem”) and “A Nightmare on Elf Street” (a less than holy borrowing of “O Holy Night”) set the stage for this crazy, creative walk on the wild side of Jesus’ birthday.  It won’t take long into the opening track to nuzzle up to the black and white, shadowy mood as angelic voices are interrupted by throbbing bass and drums with a guitar and growling baritone sax out of the strip club of your nightmares grinding away. Mix your eggnog with a straight shot of Tom Waits in his Blue Valentines/Nighthawks at the Diner guise and stroll down Heart Attack and Vine looking for a lump of coal to coat your candy canes as “It Came from the North Pole” blasts through your bones with its tough blues guitar strut. And once you hear how demonic the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” becomes as it mutates into “Tinseltown Nocturne,” you’ll never think of that once innocuous tune the same way again. 

It goes without saying that this won’t be the go-to album for Christmas day in most homes. But when you’re nursing that post-25th hangover and need music to take down the sagging tree and throw out the torn wrapping paper to, it’s tough to imagine anything more appropriate. With its built in retro swagger, ominous organ and rain swept 4AM vibe, Wonderlux’s Christmas Eve is the accompaniment for those who understand that The Nightmare Before Christmas is more than just the title to a seasonal flick.

Tim Easton And Friends Cover Bob Dylan’s “Rocks And Gravel” To Help Raise Money For Homeless