Canadian Winters

Vancouver-based singer/songwriter Joel Willoughby’s Canadian Winters is a welcome alternative from typical feel-good holiday projects. The seven-track EP creates a dreamily downbeat mood that invokes the long, chilly months of the Great White North. Building most of the tracks around his vocals and guitar, Willoughby mixes original material with cover tunes and traditional Christmas hymns. The wistful folk strains of “No Words to Say” and the title tune (both written by Maplewood Lane’s Rebecca Rowen) complement Joel’s own “So Far Away (On Christmas Day)” and “Christmas Eve.” “Nothing to Offer” (a meditation on gift-giving by Minneapolis indie rocker Jon Reine) adds a spacy, slightly disturbing touch. Willoughby’s acoustic renditions of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” and “What Child Is This?” bring out the poetic luster of their timeless words. Behind the overcast atmosphere of Canadian Winters there’s an abiding sense of Christian faith and hope to be found. Taken together, these bittersweet yuletide tunes are the perfect soundtrack for a fireside reverie on a cold, snow-draped night.