News of yet another Christmas album coming out this time of year is fairly humdrum. Celtic Woman and everyone else dress up their Irish melodies for the holidays with green mistletoe, and the prospect of reviewing these fa-la-la-la-lame musical gestures at the bottom of my mailbag is about as appealing as putting away a third slice of fruitcake in one sitting.
Of course, when your name is Enya and you drop "And Winter Came," you are impossible to ignore. She is not only the biggest selling Irish artist of our time and an 800 pound gorilla of our culture, she has landed yet another Top 10 debut on the Billboard 200 (tying her highest-ever Billboard chart entry) with this new holiday CD.
Reviews of the album have even been great, with none other than the LA Times hailing "And Winter Came" as "supremely ethereal and spiritually transcendent."
While a Christmas album is supposed to put you in the mood for the chilly season, this record left me somewhat cold for all the wrong reasons.
On one hand, it makes total sense that Enya embraces winter. She puts out a vibe that is so nippy that she's one red nose shy of leading Santa's sleigh.
The refusal to tour, grant interviews to hack journalists like myself, and her habit of only leaving her expensive castle when she sees her shadow (ushering in six more weeks of winter, ironically) makes for a chilly diva when you think about it.
Enya's visual image only fosters the winter vibe; no revealing a pale midriff between swatches of sequins for her! She's more of a modest gal, favoring flowing evening wear constructed from the same dark and velvety drapes that hang in Santa's workshop.
Her trademark ethereal sound also has a hand in reducing the temperature. The multilayered whispers and echoed effects that couch her gorgeous voice conjures up musical snow on tracks like "Journey of the Angels."
"Somewhere in a winter night/the angels/begin their flight/dark skies with miles to go, no footsteps to be lost in snow/they fly to you/oh, new-born king/they fly to you/oh, angels sing," she sings.
Her purposeful, wraith-like vocal delivery sounds so in line with the holiday that you can just imagine Enya shaking off the effects of tryptophan in the studio, a turkey carcass and cartons of a few Boston Market sides scattered around the mike stand as she warbles.
Nicky and Roma Ryan have been Enya's musical partners ever since she broke out from Clannad. While husband Nicky has managed the studio trickery as producer, it has fallen on wife Roma to craft the couplets sung by the Donegal chanteuse.
In the past Roma's simple poetry has been the elemental foil against a swirl of complex musical arrangements, but it has become so paint by numbers in some spots that you wonder if The Grinch stole her creativity.
How else would you explain the Dr. Seuss-level drivel of "have you seen the mistletoe/it fills the night with kisses/have you seen the bright new star?/it fills your heart with wishes/have you seen the candlelight?/it shines from every window/have you seen the moon above?/it lights the sky in silver" as evidenced on "White Is in the Winter Night"?
There is a fine line between chilly and spooky, and Enya's natural warmth has always added a level of humanity that has kept her on the right side of the line.
Nicky Ryan amps up the eerie factor on her cover of "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel," embellishing the arrangement with an absurd, processed backing vocal that sounds robotic and devoid of any emotion. It's as out of place as posing a Terminator doll on his knees under the tree in your nativity scene.
There is nothing on "And Winter Came" as inventive as "Amid the Falling Snow" from her CD Amarantine, or "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" from the Sounds of the Season EP she released through Target a few years back.
In fact, there are enough frosty moments in her back catalogue at this point to make a greatest hits album, that could double as a better winter offering than "And Winter Came" when it's packaged the right way. Lord knows, Enya has the dress to wear on the cover!
Enya and the Ryans have crafted "And Winter Came" the same way that they've always done, which, of course, is the cornerstone of my beef.
So many technological advancements and organic textures have been introduced into the musical conversation since she crafted "The Celts" in the eighties, but none of it is absorbed by this team. What was once considered cutting edge on "Watermark and Shepherd Moon" now has the shelf life of curdled eggnog, with slightly less appeal.
There are plenty of 800 pound gorillas abandoning their legacies and experimenting with their "musical brand" to create some of the best tunes of their careers. Paul McCartney and Madonna's last few albums have been birthed by a host of contemporary producers that have both shed new light on their innate songwriting ability without turning away record buyers from the shops.
Though the chart success would tell her otherwise, Enya is in bad need of a musical makeover so that she can shake the Ghost of Christmas Past off her scent.
Heck, Enya only has to look to her own family when they get together for the holidays to see chance takers at work.
"An Irish Christmas" was released last year by Moya Brennan, Enya's sister and former bandmate in Clannad. Don't quote me on this, but it probably sold about a tenth of what "And Winter Came" sold in its first two weeks of release, further proving that life ain't fair.
Like Enya, Brennan might use the same atmospheric textures and ethereal vocal delivery if you're into that sort of thing. But she's not afraid to sing straight, even if that means (gasp!) that the whimsical magic of the season shines through.
Imagine that, Enya! Your sister also brings her trademark harp and other earthy elements into the arrangement that gives off an Irish warmth as toasty as a turf fire, another crazy idea that doesn't seem so far fetched when you really think about it.
For more information on "An Irish Christmas," log onto moyabrennan.com. You are hereby advised to buy that and give "And Winter Came" the cold shoulder.