Pitchfork

Sleigh bells and chimes are a hallmark of popular Yuletide songs, evoking so much winter wonder at once-- reindeer on the roof, hansom carriages in the snow, tinkling icicles falling from the eaves. Leave it to wittily depressive Dan Bryk to warp their good cheer toward the doomy, intoning them like funeral bells amid the ominous drums and minor-key pianos of this gloom-pop Christmas crash 'n' burn. The arrangement creeps and darkly sparkles, evoking the cold winter night but not the warm hearth. Bryk's icily neutral demeanor in the verses is offset by his wheedling chorus, evoking the desperate mood swings of holiday-enhanced loneliness. "When I saw you in late August, it already felt like fall" (sad), "You were crying in the Starbucks at Crabtree Mall" (so sad!). Bryk is as jaded as the Trekky kids are earnest; he's the magic of the season's seamy underbelly: "All the gestures are empty / All the decorations are fake," he states flatly, as the "little children sing their stupid songs." A real grinch, all right, but anyone who's got a shitty Christmas or two under their belt will know what he means. Oh, did I mention that the song is kind of a suicide note? Merry Christmas.