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Dec 22, 2015 Web Exclusive By Matthew Berlyant

It’s safe to say that in the less than two years since her old band Vivian Girls announced their official breakup, Cassie Ramone has been busy. Christmas in Reno, her first (yes) Christmas album and second solo album overall, follows last year’s The Time Has Come and stylistically is quite similar. While The Time Has Come featured Ariel Pink, this one features a few contributions from Dylan White on guitar. However, this is clearly Ramone’s show, the album mainly just featuring her on guitar and voice with an absolute ton of reverb on the latter, making everything feel like a foggy, murky haze.

Calling the record “at once an ode to the nostalgic merriment of Christmas and a nod to the pain and desolation of the American holiday season,” she succeeds on both counts. If you don’t pay close attention and let it play it in the background, this can seem just like another fun, breezy Christmas album full of holiday standards like “The Christmas Song,” Chuck Berry’s “Run Run Rudolph” and Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime.” Upon closer inspection, though, Ramone clearly favors projecting the aforementioned pain and desolation, with these versions being perhaps the ghostliest and loneliest you may ever hear. Ultimately, this will likely not win over many new fans as the Christmas album is a well-worn genre and Ramone doesn’t deviate drastically from what she’s done in the recent past. However, if you’re looking for an atypical Christmas album to soak in the holiday blues or if you liked The Time Has Come, this is well worth checking out. (www.twitter.com/cassieramone)

Author rating: 7/10