Forever Enya

People who follow me on Facebook or Twitter know that I shrieked in delight like a little girl when I found out that Enya had a new CD coming out, and that it was a Christmas CD. Yes, I know, every Enya album sounds alike; all creamy overdubbed vocals, hushed synthesizers, muffled percussion, and the tolling of ancient bells, all sounding like they were recorded in a huge cosmic cathedral. Each album begins with an instrumental, the second or third song is usually what I refer to a "bippity boppity boo" number (thanks, Tim Lauer), because it's suddenly bouncy and chirpy. Amidst the slow and quiet songs, there will be a song or two in a foreign language (sometimes Gaelic, sometimes Latin, sometimes in a made-up language called Loxian), and some tunes which are rather dark and stormy before the album ends with a long slow angelic fade out.

Her new album, And Winter Came... is not very different from her last, Amarantine, or the one before that, A Day Without Rain, or, for that matter, her first hit album, Watermark, from almost 20 years ago. This one has a theme, winter, or, more commercially speaking, Christmas, though there's only two traditional carols, and one, "Oiche Chiuin," is a choral version of the Gaelic "Silent Night" that she's recycled for years. The title cut, the first song, is an unmemorable instrumental, but things get better from there. Musically, most of the songs are stock Enya, as I've described above, with at least one major surprise, a song called "My! My! Time Flies," which, with a 70's guitar break and a strong vocal, is as close as she's gotten to a rock song. Most of the songs contain winter imagery, and more than half actually mention Christmas.

My favorite, in addition to "My! My! Time Flies," is "White Is In the Winter Night," with its catalog of traditional Christmas colors and images. This could stand an outside chance at becoming a seasonal radio standard--the catchy rhythm and melody put me in mind of George Harrison's "Piggies": "Have you seen the mistletoe" vs. "Have you seen the little piggies." I also like the childlike "One Toy Soldier," the romantic "Stars and Midnight Blue," and her take on "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel," partly in Latin. I admit I would have liked another 2 or 3 carols; "Coventry Carol" particularly seems tailor-made for Enyaization. I suspect that Enya won't make a lot of new fans with this; those buying it just because it's being sold as a holiday album will probably be disappointed. Though the ratio of peppy songs to somber songs is maybe a little higher than usual, this is just another Enya album, but that's what we fans want.