Christmas all the time
Plus, Haunt scores high on the year-end lists and Rumba 32 gives a "Renovation."
If we’re being technical, Christmas is over.
But, the season lasts through New Year’s at least and you can still blast a good Christmas tune as long as the tree’s still up. Right?
Especially if the song calls for an indefinite extension of the holiday.
So: the Alien Brother’s “It Should Be Christmas All the Time,” which borrows late-period Roy Orbison in its structure and instrumentation, while checking all the boxes for what makes a great Christmas song (the catchy hook and crooner vocals, the slight spiritual bend, the bell chimes and choir of angelic voices).
This should easily be added to next year’s holiday playlist.
The Alien Brothers is Eldon and Jeff Daetweiler, who played in the band Alien Fashion Show in the late ’90s (and again in the 2010s) and have a history in the area (they grew up in Visalia).
Eldon also spent some time in Fresno and was the guy behind Fresno Modern Real Estate.
Haunt haunts those end-of-the-year lists …
Around 2018, Trevor Church took a pivot from his Sabbath-inspired metal band Beastmaker and started releasing albums under the moniker Haunt. The music was decidedly less doom, but no less of a throwback, with Church channeling ’80s-area New Wave of British Heavy Metal (ala the dual-guitar kick of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden).
For those in the scene, the band became a critical darling. Church was featured in Rolling Stone and Haunt was on the cover of Decibel Magazine and a bunch of year-end lists with its first albums “Luminous Eyes,” and “Burst into Flame.”
While Church spent some of 2020 working with other bands in the producer role, he did still manage to release a trio of Haunt albums, including a complete re-imagining of “Luminous Eyes” and “Mosaic Vision” (all available at hauntthenation.bandcamp.com).
And the albums are getting that end-of-the-year love.
“Flashback,” which the band released in July, was No. 21 on Decibel’s Top 40 albums of 2020. The Grym Hessian has both “Flashback” and the January release “Mind Freeze” in his top 100 for the year.
Rumba 32, “Renovation”
“Renovation” was released across all platforms (and on CD) in August as the debut album from Rumba 32, the Latin-jazz group led by Steve Alcalá and featuring a who’s who of Fresno players.
Rumba 32 bills itself as “soulsa” — old-school soul music mixed with Afo-Cuban vibes — and “Renovation” sees the band reinterpreting (and re-orchestrating) Stevie Wonder (“Boogie on Reggae Woman”), Bill Withers (“Just the Two of Us,” “Use Me”) and Joe Cocker (“Feelin Alright”) into danceable Latin jazz.
The album also features original arrangements from Grammy-award winners Oscar Hernández, Vince Norman and Francisco Torres (with The Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Afro Bop Alliance and the Pancho Sanchez Band, respectively).
Some of the “soul” does get lost in translation here (on Bobby Hebb’s 1966 tune “Sunny,” for example), but anything lost gets replaced by kind of boppin’ of energy that makes for fun listening nonetheless, especially if you have an affinity for big, bright horns and percussion solos.
If you have anything you think I need to be looking at or listening to, feel free to let me know: jtehee@gmail.com