Christmas With The Smithereens

Christmas with The Smithereens is more than a Christmas-time cover album... This quartet does an impressive job of channeling the spirt of 1960s rock, and solidly interpreting each memorable tune.

The band's originals add a nice twist to the disc and are written with such '60s savviness that without prior knowledge it would almost be difficult to decide which songs were covers and which were originals. Lead singer Pat DiNizio wraps his husky voice around a smartly selected collection of classic seasonal rockers such as "Run Rudolph Run" and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," along with more obscure fare. It's the latter that makes this such a delight, as the band tears into rugged re- workings of the Ramones' "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)," the Who's crunchy "Christmas" (from Tommy) and even a rare Beatles track grabbed from the Liverpool band's '60s fan club only discs.