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A Wonderful Festive Listening Experience
The MonaLisa Twins have produced a Christmas album that is an endearing, eclectic and what should be an enduring festival favourite. Seemlessly moving across genres MonaLisa’s CHRISTMAS feels like the Neapolitan ice cream you enjoyed as a child; multi flavours yet a tasty whole.
The album begins on a high with the original ‘All I Want Christmas to Be.’ This is a beautiful piece with a gorgeous melodic chorus and delightful lyrics. Using personal anecdotes has been cleverly used before on their original albums and here is another example. It makes their material feel authentic and the listener feels like they are being sung to individually. The harmonies shine and the layering of the melody combine to make one of their most delightful songs. It deserves to become a Christmas standard. ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ is transformed into an enticing sixties vibe groove. Then followed by Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy yet again the harmonies just meld and flow with such sweetness and delicacy. Elsewhere such as with their take of McCartney’s ‘Wonderful Christmas Time’ the outcome is arguably better than the original. On this and others such as ‘Santa Baby’ the vocal delivery is simple, direct and yet still emotive. The worded interplay between Lisa and Mona on Santa Baby is fun and does not feel forced at all. With Lennon’s ‘And So This is Christmas’ the song is reworked into a New Orleans style ‘fun fest’. This is definitely one of the albums many high points with exuberant background party vocals and clever instrumentation. Whilst not wanting to diminish the original it is very refreshing to hear a song so much associated with school choir performances be performed so uniquely without diminishing the message of the song.  The simple approach towards the evergreen classic ‘Silent Night’ is touching. Commencing with some delicate guitar the vocals follow to finish both the song and album with sincerity and beauty. CHRISTMAS is a great success by this wonderful sister duo – a festive release that is very highly recommended.
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1 Reply
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Hi….. A friendly tip: This would be perfect to repost as well over on their store pages where you can write a review under the CD, I think you should consider resharing/reposting (copy/past) this post over there as well… A great review you offered up! ?
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