Good Grief

Here's a review I found online that fascinates me a) because I love the title of the album, and b) because for all the description, I don't have any sense of the music at all. I'm not even sure it's a Christmas album.

A Charlie Brown Death Metal Christmas...
I am unsure how to rate this album. I really am. I know for sure that I absolutely love it. Is it progressive? Oh yes. Is it experimental? Oh yes. Is it original? ...

It is so many things. This is one of the most disjointed and unnerving albums full of so many flowing styles and mixes. Styles touched go anywhere form progressive rock and death metal, to indie rock and jazz. So many brilliant musical ideas are given to you, and with such conviction. Folk passages with clean vocals, death metal stomping in the midst of pretty sounds. The lyrics are something to ponder. This entire record strikes me as a virulent enigma, yet it captivates me with so vitriol.

The songs flow into each other in a way, and the entire album has an atmosphere (one that changes rather often.) The acoustic passages are beautiful, the heavy sections are well played and sound strong. One song in particular "Sleep is a Curse" is one of the prettiest pieces of music I have ever heard. How could they have come up with such a style? I do not know, and it makes this hard to rate.

The music is most certainly not easily accessible. It will alienate death metal and heavy fans, and it will alienate fans of soft acoustic/folk music. But, whatever they choose to do, they do so vibrantly, so skillfully, and with so many evocative melodies that entrance me completely.

There are interludes interspersed through the main songs, and are quite enticing. The entire album never stops being highly intriguing. So much material here to delve int0o and get lost in the lilting sounds. I will give this 5 stars. It is highly experimental and progressive, the songs go from powerfully brutal and dark, to emotionally moving and majestically pretty. By no means essential to everyone, but essential to me.