Sleigh Ride
Artist: Dorothy Savage
Label: Crimson Pink Music
Length: 10 tracks (34:48)

Hot on the heels of her freshman album, Glorious Mess finds Savage, like so many of her contemporaries, tossing her hat into the Christmas album ring. But where Mess, although certainly far from groundbreaking, was a sturdy, deliberate and, most importantly, engaging piece of work, Sleigh Ride, as is so often the case with holiday-related efforts, largely comes across as an almost tossed-off, afterthought.

Indeed, the first three tracks, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and “What Child Is This” are delivered at break-neck pace with nary a hint of the original songs’ sublimely intimate character. Indeed, Savage sounds almost as if she’s singing them while doing something else. It isn’t until she decides to take a breath and lay back in the mix that she truly begins to sound invested in the songs, as she does on the triumphantly laid-back, yet thoroughly appealing, “O Come All Ye Faithful.” The jazz-inflected “Little Drummer Boy” is likewise engrossing.

The remainder of the proceedings fall somewhere between these two extremes. To her credit, Savage possesses a clear, powerful voice and the album is hardly a complete wash. That said, while fans of Rebecca St. James and other tween- and teen-friendly dance-popsters of her ilk may well warm up to Sleigh Ride with little or no coaxing, nearly everyone else will be best served by cherry picking the album for one or two downloads to toss on to their favorite Christmas mix CD or iPod playlist.

Bert Gangl, The Phantom Tollbooth (12/28/2010)