Folkmonger Records
Buy: Bandcamp
Mike Behrends and Lance Owens’ seasonal project, The Ornaments, has entered its fifth, fascinating year. The Ornaments can not write a normal Christmas song. 2016’s “Flying Home for Christmas,” had the narrator thinking about Christmas songs as his plane went down – just try to find another band who will go down that road! 2018’s “Give Me All the Christmas You Got,” is much brighter in content (there is no imminent death), but Mike Behrends’ lyrics cannot help but be evocative. For most of the past year, Mike has been living in Turkey, a predominantly muslim country with a very different climate from his Wisconsin roots. His detachment from the Christmas he knows and loves leads to equal parts longing and loving, as Mike pinpoints and appreciates these small details of Christmas that often get lost in the buzz of the holidays – yet he can’t have them. Recorded into an iPhone and sent 9 hours back in time to Wisconsin, his partner Lance Owens has beautifully mixed Mike’s vocals, at first setting them far away, but bringing them close as the imagery begins to flow. The music compliments the lyrical tone, soft nostalgia with a hint of anxiety, and with that, another Ornaments’ classic. Word is that they might be planning something fun when they hit a decade – and that is great to hear, as The Ornaments are one of the distinctive pleasures of the alternative Christmas season.
Bottom Line: The Ornaments are like no other Christmas band, as they continue to make fascinating, wholly unique Christmas songs.
Christmas Underground 