I only downloaded Over the Rhine's Snow Angels earlier today, but it pretty much blew me away on first listen. Right from the smoky, jazzy opening song, "All I Ever Get for Christmas is Blue", the album just felt like something special, and by the time I was wiping tears from my eyes while listening to "Snow Angel", I had made my mind up to post about it as soon as possible.
I actually find it very interesting that Snow Angels is not a new album - it was in fact released in 2006 and even has its own Wikipedia page. From that page, I learned that the song "Goodbye Charles" was inspired by Vince Guaraldi's compositions from A Charlie Brown Christmas, although that would likely be obvious to anyone who is familiar with the latter - what's most amazing of all is how authentic they managed to make it sound. As a side note, try listening to the soundtrack for A Charlie Brown Christmas on your favourite portable music player the next time you're out for a walk (preferably in the snow) - I did it earlier today, and I don't think anything could have wiped the smile from my face.
While the album as a whole is great, the highlight for me was without a doubt "Snow Angel". Think of songs like Joni Mitchell's "River" and Sarah McLachlan's "Winter Song" - "Snow Angel" fits very nicely alongside them. It is beautiful, but absolutely heartbreaking at the same time. Here's a sampling of the lyrics:
Snow angel, snow angel
Someday I'm gonna fly
This cold and broken heart of mine
Will one day wave goodbye
Goodbye to this cruel wicked world
And all the tears I've cried
Snow angel, snow angel
I'll meet you in the sky
One final thing worth mentioning is that, with the exception of "One Olive Jingle" ("a lounge-inspired take on 'Jingle Bells'"), the entire album consists of original material.
Happy listening!
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