T here s something about the holidays that brings singers, good and bad, out of the woodwork to share their favorite Christmas tunes.
Here are reviews of some recently released CDs, just in time for trimming the tree and holiday get-togethers:
While most singers should keep quiet this time of year, Sarah McLachlan s offering is a winner.
Wintersong, her first studio LP since 2003 s Afterglow, is suited for listening to while the snow falls outside and the hot chocolate is still warm.

That it happens to have some Christmas-oriented songs O Little Town of Bethlehem and Silent Night is like finding extra marshmallows in the cupboard for that cup of cocoa.
McLachlan has a soothing voice and hearing her sing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and What Child Is This? (Greensleeves) is a welcome change from the more commercially oriented fare sung by pop stars from the past and present.

Her covers of John Lennon s Happy Xmas (War Is Over) and Joni Mitchell s River are also treats as is her single, the title track Wintersong.
Like perennial Christmas favorites Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole, Texas music veteran George Strait possesses a vocal style as mellow and smooth as hot-buttered rum. His lived-in style is perfect for those who like their yuletide classics as if delivered in a wool sweater while sitting in front of a crackling fire.

On his third holiday album, Fresh Cut Christmas, Strait concentrates on sing-along standards like We Three Kings, Deck the Halls and We Wish You a Merry Christmas, giving them all just a hint of Lone Star twang.
The famous balladeer gives well-known solemn songs like Silent Night and O Christmas Tree a candle-lit glow, with steel guitar and mandolin adding sweet country accents. But Strait seems to particularly enjoy the more playful tunes, like Up on the Housetop and Jingle Bells, which he and producer Tony Brown energize with western-swing rhythms.

The album was released in a marketing agreement with Hallmark Cards Inc. and is sold only at Hallmark Gold Crown stores.
James Taylor s sweet voice proves well suited to lighthearted holiday fare with his collection, At Christmas.

With the accompaniment of pianist and arranger Dave Grusin adding a delightful touch of jazz, Taylor offers lively takes on some standards Winter Wonderland, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire) and serves up a unique and surprising interpretation of Jingle Bells.
He lends his top-notch folk to the spiritual Go Tell It On The Mountain and a stirring version of Joni Mitchell s River, and avoids the pitfall of sounding corny on Auld Lang Syne.
But the highlight is easily the romantic duet, Baby, It s Cold Outside featuring a wonderfully playful turn by Natalie Cole.

The song s theme of curling up by the fire with a loved one may be cliche, but that s exactly what At Christmas makes you want to do.
This is, quite simply, the best hard rock Christmas album ever made, and one of the best rock n roll Christmas albums period since Elvis made his. It s that good.

The words clever, intelligent and groundbreaking have seldom appeared in critics assessments of Twisted Sister, but that s exactly what this 11-song collection is. The Long Island quintet melds classic Christmas tunes with their favorite heavy metal songs to create a disc like no other. For instance, singer Dee Snider realized that the chorus to the band s biggest hit We re Not Gonna Take It is almost note-for-note the same as the melody to O Come All Ye Faithful.

So the band played the backing music for the Twisted song, while Snider sung the traditional hymn lyrics, and the result is an instant holiday classic.
I ll Be Home For Christmas, a duet with Lita Ford, is set to the music of Twisted s The Price, and the band s Rock And Roll Saviors morphs into Let It Snow. Other bands also get the treatment: AC/DC s Problem Child becomes Silver Bells, Judas Priest s You ve Got Another Thing Coming becomes I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, and Black Sabbath s Never Say Die and War Pigs are blended into Deck The Halls and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.

The one original track, Heavy Metal Christmas, is a Twisted interpretation of The Twelve Days Of Christmas ( Four quarts of Jack, three studded belts, two pairs of spandex pants, and a tattoo of Ozzy. ) It also has ferocious bass riffing by Mark The Animal Mendoza that alone is worth the price of the disc.
This is the band s final album before calling it quits next year, and they saved the best of a 30-year career for last.

Aimee Mann s plaintive voice seems better suited to songs of sorrow and loss than Yuletide spirit. But she manages to deliver Christmas classics that are quietly festive though still poignant on One More Drifter in the Snow.
The collection of standards and lesser-known holiday songs borrows from popular Christmas albums of decades past, with shimmering keyboards and orchestral arrangements that recall the work of Johnny Mathis and other crooners.

But Mann s renditions are distinctly eerie and off-kilter. Her singing, often accompanied by tremolo guitars, is ghostly on tracks such as Christmastime, a lament by her husband, Michael Penn. And she taunts listeners in a jazzy version of You re A Mean One, Mr.

Grinch, narrated by fellow singer-songwriter Grant Lee Phillips.
Among the album s chestnuts are I ll Be Home for Christmas, Winter Wonderland and a version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen that features quirky horn and guitar parts worthy of Tom Waits.
The CD closes with its only original, Calling on Mary, a typically pain-tinged song Mann co-wrote with her producer, Paul Bryan.

If most Christmas albums seem relentlessly upbeat, Mann s latest release offers an alternative. Though it may not inspire celebration, One More Drifter in the Snow shows there s more to Christmas than holiday cheer.
Rachael Ray, the ever perky talk show host and chef, gets into music with a holiday collection that is the latest in a long line of products in her name.

How Cool Is That Christmas includes a nice mix of classics and lesser-known songs featuring Frank Sinatra crooning White Christmas, Willie Nelson singing Blue Christmas and Hall Oates with Jingle Bell Rock.
Jazzy non-standards such as Buster Poindexter s swinging Zat You, Santa Claus? keep the album interesting but the classics provide nostalgia.

I dare you not to sing along with Aretha Franklin on Winter Wonderland.
The collection would have been no more, no less without Ray s toothy smile on the cover, but then would the liner notes include a recipe for Christmas Pasta? The album itself is a simple crowd-pleaser, not unlike Ray s 30-minute meals.

This is about as joyless a Christmas album as it s possible to record. Hall Oates, the hit-making duo who once ruled the radio with a seemingly endless string of Top 40 gems, phone it in here, from the cover illustration that looks like it was drawn by a fourth-grader in art class to the uninspired arrangements that lean way too heavily on strings and keyboards.
To put it another way, they re out of touch and out of time.

It s a shame coming from artists who once had the knack for crafting classic pop hits that stayed with you forever, backed by a boppy groove and an infectious melody. Simply put, there s none of that here. It Came Upon A Midnight Clear, No Child Should Ever Cry On Christmas and Every Day Will Be Like A Holiday are just unlistenable more than once.

The only redeeming feature of this album is that a portion of the proceeds will go to the Toys For Tots campaign run by the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.

Hall Oates used to make my dreams come true, but as for the muse that once made these guys pop gods, well, she s gone.
Get ready for some kickin holiday bluegrass with the mandolin mama and the talented friends she s brought with her. On Beautiful Star, Rhonda Vincent s 12 offerings range from a toe-tapping, mandolin-, fiddle- and banjo-intensive Christmas Time at Home (written by Vincent) to an almost torchy treatment of A Christmas Song.

The acoustic simplicity of Silent Night makes it worth a few more listens. Sharon White Skaggs Ricky s wife and her sister Cheryl White join Vincent on a tender harp-accompanied Away in a Manger.
A children s chorus about one-third of them named Vincent adds a gathered-round-the-tree touch to Jingle Bells.

A positively rollicking Twelve Days of Christmas is a fun wrap-up, especially because it sounds like some of the guys in the choir might have been doing a little wassailing beforehand.
Tenor Carl Tanner has always found himself drawn to O Holy Night, a song he has performed in venues ranging from the lighting of the national Christmas Tree at the White House to midnight mass at St. Patrick s Cathedral, so he chose it to be the centerpiece on his first album, a tuneful Christmas sampler titled after a line in O Holy Night.

Tanner opens the CD with a robust Joy to the World and immediately follows it with the tender Mille Cherubini not exactly Christmas, but a soft lullaby in Italian is close enough. He is effectively joined on it and other tracks by the Seattle-based Northwest Boychoir, The Seattle Chorus and the Northwest Sinfonia.
Tanner rounds out his 16-track holiday offering with a mix of sacred and secular, a couple of Ave Marias, The Lord s Prayer and Panis Angelicus balanced by Little Drummer Boy, White Christmas and that much-roasted chestnut The Christmas Song.