Album: Annie Lennox, A Christmas Cornucopia (Island)
(Rated 4/ 5 )Reviewed by Andy Gill
There’s clearly been a considerable amount of imagination and devotion put into the making of A Christmas Cornucopia, whose origins lie in Annie Lennox’s pre-teen endeavours as a chorister.
Technically unimpeachable, the layered harmonies of songs such as “Angels From The Realms Of Glory” and “The Holly And The Ivy” are rendered with razor-sharp precision, though there’s a stridency to her delivery on some pieces – the refrain to “Lullay, Lullay”, and the eerie, choral harmonies bookending “Il Est Ne Le Devin Enfant” – which borders on scary. But her “In The Bleak Midwinter” is perfectly poised, and the imaginative use of tin whistle, string drone and darbuka drum brings an intriguing Middle-Eastern medieval character to “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”.
DOWNLOAD THIS In The Bleak Midwinter; God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen; Angels From The Realms Of Glory; See Amid The Winter’s Snow