Home for Christmas

We Say...

Review by Mark Richardson

During their hitmaking years, Darryl Hall and John Oates excelled above all at synthesis. Their preferred term, "Rock and Soul," laid out two parameters of their partnership, but the breadth of their music stretched even further. And as they plundered four decades of American music for inspiration— '50s doo-wop, '60s guitar pop, '70s proto-disco, '80s new wave — the thread was the duo's distinctive voices and harmonies, the special way Hall's elastic high tenor fused with Oates' regular-dude low-end. And so it is with Home for Christmas, which finds them bringing their eclectic interests to bear on timeworn favorites and a few originals.

The album begins with an overture, so you know they're serious about giving holiday music traditionalists something that would sound good shuffled between Nat King Cole and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. But as the orchestrations give way to Hall's soulful note-bending on "The First Noel" and Oates joins him to turn the phrase "Born is the king!" into a pop hook plucked from the tree that gave us "She's Gone," it becomes clear that they're doing it their way. "Home for Christmas" has country inflections, Oates-sung "The Christmas Song" is jazzed up with electric piano and a tenor sax, the intimate "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" is built with a folky acoustic and Hall's voice, and the glowing Hall original "No Child Should Ever Cry at Christmas" has the joyful warmth of Philly soul. The production is certainly slick, with a bright twinkle emanating from every instrument and lots of reverb. But these yacht-rock favorites have always had a professional sheen. In the end it comes down to these two voices singing together, which in this setting is like sitting down to dinner with old friends.