Search - Susan Mckeown, Lindsey Horner :: Through the Bitter Frost & Snow

Through the Bitter Frost & Snow
Susan Mckeown, Lindsey Horner
Through the Bitter Frost & Snow
Genres: Folk, International Music, Special Interest, Pop
 
  •  Track Listings (13) - Disc #1

This thematic collection of songs about winter and Christmas finds McKeown beginning to realize the potential that peeked out at irregular intervals on her last full-length effort (Bones, Prime CD PCD-027). Now that the fo...  more »

     
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CD Details

All Artists: Susan Mckeown, Lindsey Horner
Title: Through the Bitter Frost & Snow
Members Wishing: 0
Total Copies: 0
Label: 1-800 Prime CD
Original Release Date: 10/14/1997
Release Date: 10/14/1997
Genres: Folk, International Music, Special Interest, Pop
Styles: British & Celtic Folk, Celtic, Holiday & Wedding
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPCs: 782073003620, 827371003627

Synopsis

Album Description
This thematic collection of songs about winter and Christmas finds McKeown beginning to realize the potential that peeked out at irregular intervals on her last full-length effort (Bones, Prime CD PCD-027). Now that the focus is primarily on her voice and on the muscular but sensitive bass playing of Lindsey Horner, things are a bit lighter and jazzier, especially on "Winter King" and the lovely "Bold Orion," which includes an out-of-place but strangely satisfying electric guitar solo. "Green Grow'th the Holly" is a 15th-century English Christmas song that McKeown delivers in gorgeous multi-tracked three-part harmony. But the album's centerpiece is the stark and beautiful voice-and-bass rendition of "Auld Lang Syne" that had NPR's phones ringing off the hook when McKeown and Horner performed it during a New Year's Eve broadcast. This is a perfect disc to play while sitting by the fire with a loved one on a frigid winter night-not because it's romantic, exactly,! but because it lets you feel alternately the severity of winter and the warmth of the Christmas season's promise, all without leaving your living room. A remarkable album. - Rick Anderson

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CD Reviews

This is among my favorite christmas cds
Kevin Gill | San Francisco, CA United States | 12/08/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a great album. McKeown, accompanied principally by upright bassist / backing vocalist Lindsey Horner, have produced a bittersweet ode to the christmas season. The music has a melancholy reflective of the "bitter frost and snow," and the lack of sunlight, of the winter season. And yet, "through" the melancholy (as the title implies), there is a warmth and a smile that reminds you of blazing yule log, christmas lights, a hot cup of egg nog or buttered rum, and friends and family huddled together.



In some ways it pairs well with the Chieftain's christmas opus, The Bells of Dublin. This one is a little more jazzy, think perhaps of Vince Guaraldi-esque wandering basslines. I'm not going to do a song-for-song breakdown, because I think the album has such a great flow that the whole composition is greater even than the individual numbers.



I hope you enjoy this christmas cd as much as I do."
A winter album you feel in your bones
R. Robbins | 12/05/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)

"A wonderful musical effort. I love Susan's voice and she uses it here to great effect. Wonderful song arc with great versions of traditionals such as "Green Grow'th the Ivy" and "Auld Land Syne" and a top notch version of Leo Kretzner's wonderful song "Bold Orion". Marvelous ensemble playing in a jazzy celtic manner."