Get Your Music on Amazon!
Get Your Music - and everything else - on Amazon! All purchases made on Amazon through this link earn a commission for Jesusfreakhideout.com!

JFH Music Review


for King & Country, Christmas | Live From Phoenix
CLICK COVER TO ENLARGE

for King & Country
Christmas | Live From Phoenix



Artist Info: Discography
Genre(s): Christmas / Live
Album length: 10 tracks: 38 minutes, 43 seconds
Street Date: October 27, 2017


READER RATING:   


The Christmas story can often get overwhelmed with all the holiday schmaltz that gets tacked onto it every year here in the Western World. But if you strip away all the commercialism, all of the plastic and Styrofoam artifice, all of the 1950's, Frank Sinatra nostalgia (as great as that period of Christmas music and movies was), there is an epic story to be told about the beginning of God's rescue plan for his fallen children.

A story this epic, this big, deserves a musical soundtrack that is so much more than warm feelings and nostalgia. Thankfully, in the past few years a few select artists in the (larger) CCM world have released Christmas albums that thematically and musically capture the epic story well (Jason Gray, Andrew Peterson, Over The Rhine and Josh Garrels come immediately to mind).

Add for King & Country to that list. This group of Aussies (well, fronted by Australians) has quietly been writing and releasing Christmas music since their beginning, and with Christmas - LIVE From Phoenix, they have finally released a full album's worth of their take on the Christmas music tradition. And with their theatrical musical bent well in place, their take on the theme of Christmas is well done and epic, if falling a bit short as a live album (though that's a small quibble indeed).

Starting off with now-standard "Little Drummer Boy", for King & Country's trademark, huge rhythmic attack is given free rain on a song that is literally about drumming. The rhythmic onslaught on next number, beloved (and often droning) carol "O Come O Come Emmanuel" lifts the familiar and haunting ancient melody to new heights.

But it's the band's original Christmas anthems that seamlessly fit into the concert flow that make the album a unique work. The epic "Baby Boy" (complete with a great, haunting use of sleigh bells and xylophones), the rhythmically stuttering "Glorious" and the sweetly romantic "Into The Silent Night" all add to the feel and tone of the set list, and sit nicely alongside the re-arranged originals like audience sing along numbers like "Joy To The World" and "Hark The Herald Angels Sing". The ending "Proof Of Your Love" (sung with sister Rebecca St. James, who's no stranger to Christmas music) gains new context here, and was a great choice to end the set.

If only the songs had been drawn out a bit more, given a few more minutes to breathe, or if there had been a few more instrumental passages, Christmas - LIVE From Phoenix would have been a knock-out live album as well a great Christmas one. But that critique aside, the album is a great one for reminding the listener that Christmas is more than just fuzzy feeling and nostalgia. It was the proof of God's love for fallen humanity.

- Review date: 11/21/17, written by Alex "Tincan" Caldwell of Jesusfreakhideout.com



(JFH Sponsor Spot)

Check out JFH's Lloyd in his first-ever childrens book!

 

. Record Label: Word Entertainment
. Album length: 10 tracks: 38 minutes, 43 seconds
. Street Date: October 27, 2017
. Buy It: iTunes
. Buy It: Amazon.com
. Buy It: Amazon Music (MP3)

  1. Little Drummer Boy (Live) (4:37)
  2. O Come, O Come Emmanuel (Live) (4:14)
  3. Won't You Come (Interlude) (Live) (1:23)
  4. Baby Boy (Live) (3:43)
  5. Angels We Have Heard On High (Live) (3:59)
  6. Glorious (Live) (3:53)
  7. Into The Silent Night (Live) (3:32)
  8. Hark The Herald Angels Sing (Live) (3:34)
  9. Joy To The World (Live) (4:31)
  10. The Proof Of Your Love (feat. Rebecca St. James) (Live) (5:17)

 

 

 



Leave a Comment

 

 

go to main Album review page
go to Album review archive

 

 

                 
Check out JFH's Lloyd in his first-ever childrens book!

Search JFH



This Friday, May 16, 2025
ALBUMS
Confessions of a Traitor This Pain Will Serve You [Facedown]
Free Worship Praise Before It Happens [BEC]
GVTH DVDDY GVTH DVDDY [Velvet Blue]
Karen Peck & New River Good Answers [Daywind]
Lecrae & Miles Minnick Get Well Soon! [Reach]
Seventh Day Slumber Fractured Paradise: Garden of Shadows [Rockfest]
Sons of Sunday Sons of Sunday [Elevation]

SINGLES
AyeTJ Outdated - Single [Syntax]
Elan Brio Perfect Timing - Single (independent)
Melissa D Will I Be Bored in Heaven? - Single (independent)
Will Kellum Ready or Not - Single [Syntax]
Britt Nicole FAITH - Single (independent)
Makara Walk By Faith - Single [DREAM/DBMIX]
MAYIA Where Do I Go? (ft. Cutright) - Single [Syntax]
Matt Sassano My Armor - Single (independent)
Seph Schlueter Won't Start Now - Single [Provident]

VINYL
Petra The Best For Last (Studio Edition) Vinyl [Girder]

Next Tuesday, May 20, 2025
BOOKS
Shai Linne Penelope Judd [B&H]
Tauren Wells Joy Bomb: Unleash Jesus’s Explosive Joy for an Extraordinary Life [Zondervan]

Next Friday, May 23, 2025
ALBUMS
Big Daddy Weave Let It Begin [Curb]
ELEVATION RHYTHM Victory Lap [Elevation]
Signum Regis The Eyes of Power (Remixed & Remastered 2025) [Beyond the Storm]

SINGLES
Roxanne Grace Road Trip - Single [DREAM]
V1 Worship Fool for You - Single [DREAM Worship]



For all release dates, click here!
 

Join honey and save on online purchases!
Get all of JFH's indie compilation now totally free!
Check out depositphotos for royalty free images