Over the Rhine: The Darkest Night of the Year
Monday, December 16, 2024
Reality Christmas. Cold nights are a quiet mystery on this record. A slow winter welcome rather than a hurried, commercial rush around. A place of warmth, song, and comfort inside a house that smells like home. This record is the grey chimney smoke that heats a cold, black sky holding a full moon and all the constellations in his hands. It is a cat’s contented purr, a sleepy-from-playing-in-the-snow good dog’s light snore while she dreams in front of the fireplace. At times a familiar sorrow nearly overshadows the mystic reverence of every Christmas past, present, and future. But then again, not quite. Redemption and Love are here, too, and with open arms. They are the angels whispering to each other in these songs. You can barely hear their secrets, so you have to lean in a little if you want to know what they’re saying. And so you do. And once you do, you’ll agree there’s no better way to start the season than to drop the needle at dusk on the darkest night of the year.
