Helix - A Heavy Mental Christmas (2008)

01 	Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer 	
02 	Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree 	
03 	Santa Claus Is Back In Town 	
04 	Wonderful Christmas Time 	
05 	Jingle Bell Rock 	
06 	Happy Xmas (War Is Over) 	
07 	Sock It To Me Santa 	
08 	Jingle Bells 	
09 	Silent Night 	
10 	Christmas Time Is Here Again

Paul Fonseca - Guitar (Bass), Vocals (Background)
Steve Georgakopoulos - Guitar
Jim Lawson - Guitar
Aaron Murray - Keyboards
Brent Niemi - Drums, Vocals (Background)
Gord Prior - Bells, Tambourine, Vocals (Background)
Rick VanDyk - Guitar, Vocals (Background)
Brian Vollmer - Vocals
Doug Weir - Vocals (Background) 

For most people, it’s way too early to start thinking about Christmas but for Helix mainman Brian Vollmer, Christmas began over this past summer. The idea for a Helix Christmas album was conceived, a deal was made with Wal-Mart in Canada, and the album was recorded. A HEAVY MENTAL CHRISTMAS was released in early October exclusively through Wal-Mart and online through Vollmer’s website PlanetHelix.com. The album follows the successful formula laid out by Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Twisted Sister: Rock bands creating their own seasonal album by taking old-time Christmas classics and adding their own hard-edged sound.

The album breaks down to nine holiday classics and a new Helix song, ‘Christmas Time Is Here Again’. The band stays pretty true to the originals but they are rocked up and heavy! A few cool guitar solos are added in to add a little punch and some length but there isn’t much else added in to make these songs any different. This album is basically a holiday covers album and, even though I’m not big on cover tunes, it’s definitely a lot of fun. I like hearing the Helix versions of ‘Jingle Bell Rock’, ‘A Wonderful Christmas Time’ and ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’, these are some of my favorite Xmas songs and I am one of those people that tune into the Lite Rock stations November 1st to hear the holiday music. I really enjoyed the acoustic/power ballad version of ‘Silent Night’, it sounds great with the electric guitar coming in for the instrumental section. The new Helix original, ‘Christmas Time Is Here Again’, is a pretty cool song and has more energy than the classics. Obviously the difference is that this song was written as a Rock song while the others aren’t and Helix always does a great job putting out new Rock songs. ---hardrockheavymetal.wordpress.com

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