Blackmore's Night: Winter Carols
AllMusic; Amazon; Discogs; official website; Wikipedia

This originally came out in 2006, with twelve tracks. That's the version I got, but there was a reissue in 2017 with more tracks, and that's what I link to on Amazon. There's also a 2021 reissue with even more songs. I don't remember what year I got this album, but I'm reviewing it in 2021.

1. Hark the Heard Angels Sing / Come All Ye Faithful: I can't be sure, but it sounds to me like some of the lyrics have been altered. Anyway, I think the mashup is just okay.

2. I Saw Three Ships: Sounds Irish. It's kinda nice.

3. Winter (Basse Dance): This is an original instrumental piece. It sounds suitably Christmas-y, I guess. It's nice.

4. Ding Dong Merrily on High: Not bad, but it's too soft and slow for my taste, at least for most of the track. Later it gets louder and sharper. Anyway, I prefer Jackie Evancho's version.

5. Ma-O-Tzur: This is a Jewish song for Hanukkah, which I've never heard of before. It's sung in Hebrew, I guess. The end of the song is in English. It sounds nice enough, and it's also nice just to get something other than Christian and secular songs on a holiday album.

6. Good King Wenceslas: Sounds kind of Irish or Scottish, and I think some of the lyrics have been changed again. But I liked it well enough.

7. Lord of the Dance / Simple gifts: I'm not familiar with these songs, but they sound okay.

8. We Three Kings: Nice.

9. Wish You Were Here: This one is unfamiliar to me, but apparently it's a cover of a Rednex song. Yeah, the guys who did "Cotton Eye Joe" (which is all I know them for). Anyway, it's very melancholy, but not bad. Not Christmasy at all, but it's kind of wintry, which is appropriate given the album's title. And I wanna say the sound of the song put me in mind of Richard Marx, for some reason.

10. Emmanuel: Not bad. Kinda nice, actually.

11. Christmas Eve: Another original song. Not bad.

12. We Wish You a Merry Christmas: This might be my favorite song on the album, just because it's done in the closest thing to a familiar style that the album has to offer. Which is odd, because normally I'm more down for styles that are different from the usual (as long as they're also good). This is also the shortest song on the album, and I didn't hear anything about figgy pudding. That's disappointing.

Well, Wikipedia informs me that the band is British-American, so I'm confused as to why so many songs (more than the ones I mentioned) sounded Celtic to me. It also says they're a "traditional folk rock" band, and I guess it does sound kind of like folk music, but actually the music mostly sounded vaguely Medieval to me. (Well, Wikipedia says the band has a Renaissance influence, so I guess that's what I was hearing.) And I felt like more songs had altered lyrics than the ones I mentioned. I almost got the impression that they were trying to make Christian songs sound less specifically Christian, but I have no idea if I'm right about that or not. Not that I mind; after all, this isn't a Christmas album as much as a winter album, right? Even if most of the songs happen to be Christmas songs. Anyway, I liked it, but not as much as I had hoped I would. Maybe I'd enjoy it more if I weren't listening to it with earbuds, and if I weren't thinking about what to write about it instead of simply listening to it for the pleasure of it.