I picked up both Axemas' at the same time, those many Christmas' ago when I still lived at home, but was really hating the season. Christmas and I don't get along, and I'm just counting down the years until I won't clebrate it anymore. However, I still believe in Christmas music, wishing someone a Merry Christmas, and I also believe in keeping the Christ in Christmas. Go watch the Charlie Brown Christmas Special and educate yourself.
Okay on to the CD. This disc is not as good as the last one. A lot of that comes from the song selections on this album. The last album had the majority of the really cool Christmans songs. It also has more guitarists that I listen to on my own, with the exception of two. One's in the middle of the album, and one's at the end.
Steve Lukather, best known for Toto, kicks off this collection with The Christmas Song. It's nice, but a little too Smooth Jazz sounding for me.
Neal Schon's O Come, O Come Emmanuel is interesting. You can hear a lot of the Journey in his work still.
Steve Stevens' is a session guitarist that's performed with Billy Idol, Michael Jackson, and Vince Neil, and does a pretty cool version of Do You Hear What I Hear. I even enjoy the way he Rocks it out at the halfway marker. It's a bit typical, but if it works, why not.
Sleigh Ride is presented to us by bassist Stu Hamm, the extreme guitarist's bassist. His version is very classic, right down to the organ. But his entire bass delivery as the core of the song is sweet. You can almost picture him playing this in front of the fire place with the family in a Christmas Jam.
Trevor Rabin of Yes performs O Come All Ye Faithful, which I find a bit silly. Just not my thing.
Zakk Wylde performs a killer accoustic version of White Christmas. There are no gimmicks to this song. It's sounds like it would be perfectly at home on a Black Label Society accoustic album.
John Sykes brings us a Hair Metal vibed version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, but not some cheesy big haired version. This one is more talented and skilled.
I'm not fond of O Little Town Of Bethlehem. I find it's too far from the original. It sounds more like a jam out, and less like a celebration of the Christmas classic.
Now, the story as to how I originally bought the two Merry Axemas CDs comes from Al Di Meola's version of Carol Of The Bells. I had caught a snippet of this killer Metal verion of this song on TV, and promptly went looking for it in stores. I asked some guy working at Music World if he could tell me who it was, and he pointed me to these two CDs. Needless to say, this was not the cool metal version. Instead it was a decent accoustic version. This is the problem with staff in most major retail music stores. They have no clue about the music. They are just a bunch of posers trying to look cool. If I had gone to a real music store, like Dr. Disc they would have pointed me to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, which I found a couple of years later.
The album ends with Ted Nugent performing Deck the Halls in his typical Nuge fashion, but I will admit that the track sounds a bit stock and typical.
This album isn't as good as the first one, but it's still worth picking up for the break from the same boring standards.
6/10 - content
7/10 - production
7/10 - personal bias
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