Alli Rogers – The Silent Stars EP

Album Reviews • Saturday December 20th, 2008 • 12:00 am

It’s almost unfair to critique an EP of Christmas-themed music. A lot of the holiday music we hear nowadays is either so kitschy you roll your eyes five seconds in and vomit twenty seconds after that, or you hear the five thousandth version of “Jingle Bells” or “O Holy Night” and want to reach for the nearest bottle of Advil to kill the pain of it all. Artists are practically set up to fail before they even start.

But not Alli Rogers.

After giving us one of 2008’s most impressive and (sadly) overlooked independent releases with You and the Evening Sky, she brings the year to a close with a mini-album entitled The Silent Stars that is a mix of old and new, with three original songs and three covers of classic tunes penned as late as the Nineteenth Century.

As on Evening Sky, Rogers employs sparse instrumentation on each of the six songs, choosing subtlety over bombast. It would be easy for her to take “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and make it into a self-indulgent showcase of her vocals, but she plays it cool instead, letting an acoustic guitar and cello accompany her angelic voice. And rather than do a by-the-numbers retread of “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” Rogers plays with the rhythm and makes the song into something unique and beautiful (check out the achingly gorgeous acoustic guitar).

The real dynamite in this collection of tunes is the three original songs included on this record. “Comfort and Joy” is a swelling ditty highlighting how things like the moon and stars and angels reflect the light of God. “There’s Still Magic” is an encouraging song that encourages us to look past the shopping malls and stale nativity plays, and remember that 2,000 years after a babe was born in a manger, the world still celebrates his birth.

The album ends on a good note with “We’ve Been Waiting,” a piano-and-vocals song that has a melancholy beauty to it. With so much pain and hurt surrounding us, it seems like Jesus would be ready to come back any second now, but he hasn’t yet and we are still here, so those who believe in God keep waiting on and hoping in God in spite of the world that is crumbling around them.

Rogers’ folk-in-a-coffee-shop sound plays well with these songs and gives them an unexpected flavor. In addition, her vocals are rich and varied, being quiet and bluesy in moments of despair and strong and emotive at other times. Her vocals and the music have a complementary yin and yang effect, rather than one trying to swallow up the other.

The Silent Stars EP succeeds where most Christmas records fail—it offers passion, creativity and beautiful artistry.

Tagged as: singer/songwriter