Mid June? Wow! Christmas really came early this year.
JULIE CHRISTMAS - Ridiculous And Full Of Blood (CD) (2024)
Long-awaited and eagerly anticipated. Let's be real: Many releases claim to be just that - and often it feels like a bit of an exaggeration. In the case of Julie Christmas, who wasn't even musically active for a while however I'll fight anyone who denies that it's true.
It has been far over a decade since her 2010 solo debut "The Bad Wife". And "Mariner", her amazing collaboration with Cult Of Luna, is also already eight years old. Damn, how time flies!
And ever since some of its songs debuted during her mindblowing Roadburn show in 2023 one could be sure this new album would be a banger. So of course I pre-ordered it as soon as possible.
Ok, no. I only realized after the release that I had only thought I already ordered it. Like I said before: Time flies - and dementia draws nearer in frightening steps.
Where was I? Ah, yes: Julie Christmas. "Ridiculous And Full Of Blood", a title which reflects on the absurdity of living an normal life one day and suddenly being a legend on the 013 main stage an ocean away from Brooklyn, is here and and greets us with an artwork which I already dare to call iconic. And thankfully it doesn't require a 12" canvas to shine, but also works on the beautifully designed CD digipak.
Behind it hides a compact content of ten tracks with an average length of four minutes something, which form an album that is not many things:
It's not as delicate and intimate as "The Bad Wife". It's not as immediately in your face as Made Out Of Babies' "Coward". It's not as utterly dark and devasting as Battle Of Mice's psycholgical break-up war "A Day Of Nights". It's not as ginormous and epic as "Mariner".
Yet at the same time it honours and echoes all of Christmas' previous work.
If we're going to pin down the closest approximation in terms of songwriting and balance between heaviness and catchiness, I would say that this continues where the ambitious Post Hardcore of the last Babies album "The Ruiner" (2008) left off, but it adds a bigger, less dry production and an unmistakable pinch of Cult of Luna Post Metal guitar walls.
That pinch actually has a name, since Johannes Persson from the Norwegian band actually is a member of Julie's group as well and even contributes his loud signature growls to two songs. The closest we have to a "Mariner, Part 2" now! "End Of The World" and "The Lighthouse" might also be the tracks which work best as summaries of everything Julie Christmas does as a songwriter, lyricist and above all of course singer.
She squeaks, sings softly, whispers and ends her lines on strange quirky accents, "a mousy little thing", a "little sparrow". She screams, cracks, screeches, rages, roars, "LOUD, supernatural".
And noone does this quite like Julie Christmas. Always on the edge of being too intense, too excessive and eccentric, dancing too fearless on the tightrope which seperates perfect control from unhinged havoc. This lady could surely give vocal teachers heart attacks.
It's probably the musical context which makes her voice work so fantastically. She needs that larger than life Neurosis punch mixed with hymnic Post Rock grandiosity to match her own fierceness and emotional intensity.
And while they do it in a variety of shapes, all songs on "Ridiculous And Full Of Blood" find this sweet golden spot, where everything seems like an extension of Christmas' love, scorn, curiosity and desperation. This album is a hard one to hide from. Julie will find you and make you listen! What does she want from me? Why is she whispering softly into my ear and screaming so furiously right into my face? And why do I suffer her elemental unloading so gladly?
Easy answer: because she does it so fucking good. Because the whole album is so fucking good. This bloody grinning thing simply is an addictive earworm farm. And no matter if Julie sings about just wanting to see you again or unleashing like a train, roaring down a track - the sheer joy of her expressing herself and reaching out to us through music somehow always shines through in a way that gives the album an uplifting quality. Or maybe my personal memory of the great communal experience that could be felt during her Roadburn performance is just playing tricks on me.
"There's just no man upstairs, there's no God in heaven".
But at least there still is Christmas. Even in summer.
It has been far over a decade since her 2010 solo debut "The Bad Wife". And "Mariner", her amazing collaboration with Cult Of Luna, is also already eight years old. Damn, how time flies!
And ever since some of its songs debuted during her mindblowing Roadburn show in 2023 one could be sure this new album would be a banger. So of course I pre-ordered it as soon as possible.
Ok, no. I only realized after the release that I had only thought I already ordered it. Like I said before: Time flies - and dementia draws nearer in frightening steps.
Where was I? Ah, yes: Julie Christmas. "Ridiculous And Full Of Blood", a title which reflects on the absurdity of living an normal life one day and suddenly being a legend on the 013 main stage an ocean away from Brooklyn, is here and and greets us with an artwork which I already dare to call iconic. And thankfully it doesn't require a 12" canvas to shine, but also works on the beautifully designed CD digipak.
Behind it hides a compact content of ten tracks with an average length of four minutes something, which form an album that is not many things:
It's not as delicate and intimate as "The Bad Wife". It's not as immediately in your face as Made Out Of Babies' "Coward". It's not as utterly dark and devasting as Battle Of Mice's psycholgical break-up war "A Day Of Nights". It's not as ginormous and epic as "Mariner".
 |
| Julie Christmas live at Roadburn |
If we're going to pin down the closest approximation in terms of songwriting and balance between heaviness and catchiness, I would say that this continues where the ambitious Post Hardcore of the last Babies album "The Ruiner" (2008) left off, but it adds a bigger, less dry production and an unmistakable pinch of Cult of Luna Post Metal guitar walls.
That pinch actually has a name, since Johannes Persson from the Norwegian band actually is a member of Julie's group as well and even contributes his loud signature growls to two songs. The closest we have to a "Mariner, Part 2" now! "End Of The World" and "The Lighthouse" might also be the tracks which work best as summaries of everything Julie Christmas does as a songwriter, lyricist and above all of course singer.
She squeaks, sings softly, whispers and ends her lines on strange quirky accents, "a mousy little thing", a "little sparrow". She screams, cracks, screeches, rages, roars, "LOUD, supernatural".
And noone does this quite like Julie Christmas. Always on the edge of being too intense, too excessive and eccentric, dancing too fearless on the tightrope which seperates perfect control from unhinged havoc. This lady could surely give vocal teachers heart attacks.
It's probably the musical context which makes her voice work so fantastically. She needs that larger than life Neurosis punch mixed with hymnic Post Rock grandiosity to match her own fierceness and emotional intensity.
And while they do it in a variety of shapes, all songs on "Ridiculous And Full Of Blood" find this sweet golden spot, where everything seems like an extension of Christmas' love, scorn, curiosity and desperation. This album is a hard one to hide from. Julie will find you and make you listen! What does she want from me? Why is she whispering softly into my ear and screaming so furiously right into my face? And why do I suffer her elemental unloading so gladly?
Easy answer: because she does it so fucking good. Because the whole album is so fucking good. This bloody grinning thing simply is an addictive earworm farm. And no matter if Julie sings about just wanting to see you again or unleashing like a train, roaring down a track - the sheer joy of her expressing herself and reaching out to us through music somehow always shines through in a way that gives the album an uplifting quality. Or maybe my personal memory of the great communal experience that could be felt during her Roadburn performance is just playing tricks on me.
"There's just no man upstairs, there's no God in heaven".
But at least there still is Christmas. Even in summer.
