Reviews: Sarah McLachlan, Mark Kozelek

Reviews: Sarah McLachlan, Mark Kozelek

Sarah McLachlan 'Wintersong': Aidin Vaziri | She could have saved a lot of time and money if she just sent all her fans nose hair trimmers. Instead, for her first proper studio album in three years, Sarah McLachlan offers up a ballad-heavy holiday release called "Wintersong." As if the title isn't chilly enough, the music inside is downright bitter. Working with longtime producer Pierre Marchand, the Canadian singer-songwriter (left, performing at the Nov. 29 Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller Center) makes a halfhearted attempt at updating yuletide standards with slight ambient sound effects and electronic splashes. The special effects do little to betray the lackluster spell cast by her gloomy vocals and dreary choice of seasonal material ("Silent Night," "What Child Is This," "O Little Town of Bethlehem"). Not even the more contemporary songs like John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" and Joni Mitchell's "River" manage to culminate into anything more than hushed moodscapes. Meanwhile, an off-kilter take on "The First Noel/Mary Mary," which features distorted strings and ominous tribal rhythms, gives her an opportunity to dig deeper, but the ambition comes at the expense of warmth. In fact, there are hardly any cuddly moments on "Wintersong." Through all the brooding and moping, it's easy to suspect that McLachlan actually dreads tinsel, trees and snowmen. The gothic one-two punch that closes the disc with "In The Bleak Mid-Winter" and "Christmastime Is Here" would certainly seem to indicate as much. You can go ahead and blame her for the extra long lines at the return counter now.

Mark Kozelek 'Little Drummer Boy - Live': Aidin Vaziri | Mark Kozelek has released the best kind of holiday album, one that contains just a passing nod to the season with its title track. The rest of the double-disc set is made up of a generous helping of live recordings from his most recent solo acoustic tour, featuring songs that touch on nearly every phase of the pensive San Francisco singer-songwriter's career from the Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon to unlikely folk covers of AC/DC and Modest Mouse. The sound quality could be better, but Kozelek's world-weary voice is in top form as he serenely reinterprets classics such as "Mistress" and "Duk Koo Kim," tunes that are so sadly beautiful they can't help but warm the heart through even the coldest nights.