Pearlfishers

You can only listen to Phil Spector’s A Christmas Gift for You so many times, and the new version of "Do They Know It’s Christmas?” is just plain terrible, so what is the discerning music fan to do when December comes around? Well, thankfully Scotland’s answer to the Heavy Blinkers, the Pearlfishers, have come to the rescue with A Sunflower At Christmas. Apart from the very traditional "Away In a Manger,” lead Pearlfisher David Scott scribed seven songs with a Christmas-y theme that wouldn’t sound out of place on any of the previous recordings by the Pearlfishers. Or to put it another way, take equal parts Beach Boys, the High Llamas and A Charlie Brown Christmas, mix liberally and the results manage to capture the childlike joy of that time of year. A Sunflower At Christmas might not be as good as Low’s wonderful Christmas, but it is still a much cooler alternative to the usual annoying line-up of festive tunes that pollute the airwaves every December.