Christmas Boys

Some months ago I had bookmarked an emerging band from Belfast I found by the name of Christmas Boys for a timely mention here on Frequency-Ireland this holiday season. Playing a somewhat experimental alternative folk-rock, they had just started gigging earlier this year in the Belfast area. Despite this lowly status, in the interm they have received a massive volume of visitors as an unexpected side-effect of their name in the run up to Christmas, so the secret of Belfast's Christmas Boys is well and truly out now it seems (150,000 profile views, the majority of which occurred over the past month). Anyway, a few words on Christmas Boys here now regardless.

They have a few demos up on their myspace, with 'Heebie Jeebies' and 'Xmas Music For A Film' their finest efforts to date in my opinion. The sound is somewhere between Neil Young and an acoustic Violent Femmes on sedatives. Not quite in the traditional spirit of Christmas as their name might suggest, when I first encountered their myspace they had described themselves rather wryly as 'Satan's little bit of honey'. The demos have an alluring folk-leaning, somewhat embellished in degenerate life, and an overall sound which is a touch experimental in the sense that the recordings sound a bit warped, almost as if ghosted out on an old tape recorder. So, in a holiday season where we hear too much of the same old glossy Christmas songs year in year out, I’ll glady take Christmas Boys demo ‘Xmas Music For A Film’ as an alternative theme tune on Frequency-Ireland this festive season. Happy Christmas to all from Frequency-Ireland!

Related Links:

http://www.myspace.com/christmasboys