Tom Chaplin - Twelve Tales of Christmas

Post date: 08-Jan-2018 12:10:07

2 Stars

Hardly the most appealing proposition is it? The singer from Keane singing a load of Christmas songs? The cash-in bells, they are a-ringing, but wait maybe it could be good, if you’re in the spirit and like the season to be jolly. (Spoiler - It’s not)

It’s pretty much exactly what you think it sounds like, sweeping strings and wistful pianos stretching up into big crescendos while rosy, cherub faced Tom burbles about snow and tinsel and he doesn’t really stretch the formula. It’s painfully pleasant and slow as hell, his selection of songs is odd too ‘Walking in the Air’ now has a grimy feel to it as an ex-rehab clinic survivor sings the song of a newly revealed sex pest. ‘2000 Miles’ get reduced from a smoky Christmas lament into a doe-eyed trudge through slush while Tom’s version of East 17’s ‘Stay Another Day’ (not even a Christmas song, it was a Christmas number one, yes but it’s a song about a dead relative hardly yuletide fun) is spectacularly misjudged.

Unnecessarily saccharine and with a deathly dull pace this is one for the Grans and bargain bins.

Sorry Tom but this collection of Christmas blah isn’t going to usurp Phil Spector’s Christmas Album anytime soon.