Album review : LUMINARE CHRISTMAS – Mistletoe Magic

Frontiers [Release date : 22.12.24]

Founded by Chip Davis, leader of the 28 million selling, neoclassical ensemble Mannheim Steamroller, Luminare Christmas is a relatively new venture.

Mannheim have two albums in the Top Ten Best Selling Christmas albums of all time. That’s some revenue stream right there.

Davis was also keyboardist and musical director for Denis (Styx) DeYoung for many years, so he knows how to entertain an audience, and it transfers well to audio.

If you didn’t know all this, it would be easy to dismiss Luminare as just another Christmas bandwagon jumper, looking to cash in on sentimentality, aimed at soft touches with money to spend.

So, imagine a rock concert blending Christmas songs with Classic and Classical Christmas MOR, and you’re thinking, maybe there’s more to this …

And, if you put aside the schmaltzy stuff that bookends the album, like
‘The Light That Shines’, a slice of white bread soft rock, well produced, even if the lyrics are bit, er … familiar. And closer, ‘You Look Like Christmas’, designed to engage directly with our feelings, but sounds a bit too much like spent emotion, we’re on a winner.

They scatter a few originals – Christmas related ballads – among the classy stuff, but only the genuinely heartwarming ‘Like A Child’ steps up.

Then it gets serious (and international), beginning with the traditional, hymn like Christmas song, ‘Oh Holy Night’, based on a 19th century French poem.

They then dial up into the complex but hypnotic rhythms of ‘Carol Of The Bells’, music of Ukranian descent, followed by an instrumental.

‘Toy Soldiers’ is the album standout. The melody is based on music taken from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Ballet, and is impossible to resist.

It just gets better as this clearly talented bunch of multi instrumentalists carve out a welcome chunk of ‘Winter’, the violin solo from the first movement of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”. Perfectly picked and placed.

If you have any doubts, here’s what the critics are saying about the LC tour:

“Wonderful musicians and vocalists. Christmas songs with an edge.”
“World class talents”.
“A perfect mix of Christmas classics, mixed with their own holiday hits”.

And so on… ***1/2

Review by Brian McGowan

Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK

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In 2023 he signed a recording deal with Sony in Canada and released a new single on 15 September.

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Power Plays w/c 11 November 2024

ARCANE MOON Hello Sun (indie)
S8NT ELEKTRIC XTC (Long Branch Records)
RIOGHAN Hands (Inverse Records)
ARCANA KINGS Here We Go (Curtain Call Records)
KLOGR face The Unknown (Zeta Factory)
BEYOND UNBROKEN Dance With The Dead (FiXT)
REVENGIN Decadent Feeling (Wormholedeath)

Featured Albums w/c 11 November 2024

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Singer Songwriter)