Single review: El Dog – Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Can there be anything more banal than the Christmas single? Always a cultural low-point, and increasingly naked in their appeals to cheap sentiment and/or lumpen boozed-up revelry in recent years, the whole SiCo X-Factory thing has done little more than reveal the wizards behind the curtain as the grasping money-men they always were… oh, yes indeed, there are few things more cloying or worthy of violent responses than the Christmas single.

Except possibly the “subversive” Christmas single which turns out to be anything but, of course – the moment when a band you heretofore respected steps out under the plastic mistletoe wearing a slightly rueful grin (borne of seeing the rehearsal space invoices piling up unpaid on the kitchen counter beside the empty Pot Noodle containers) and proceeds to pucker up in hope that someone – anyone! – will send a bit of festive largesse their way. Only, of course, it’s being done ironically. Y’know, a commentary on the Christmas single, but using the target of the criticism as its form. How po-mo? Well po-mo. Or maybe just savagely ill advised. Alternative Christmas singles are dreadful almost as often as the regular ones. Fact. [And before you say it: yes, I'd love to audition for Scrooge at your local panto theatre. I need the money, and I'm not willing to release a Christmas single to get it].

So, when I saw my inbox contained a Christmas single by El Dog, the plucky Scots post-rock bunch whose album I was so impressed by earlier in the year, it was all I could do not to groan aloud… “c’mon, guys, why sully a respect that was based on decent music devoid of commercial pandering?” But here it is… and it’s a cover of Styne and Cahn’s “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow”, which is a better choice than many others, at least. But what have they done with it?

Well, the verses are all hushed low-bandwidth vocals and distant echoing chimes from a clean guitar, while the chorus gets a kind of Oceansize-y riff to bolster the full-clout singing. Classic quiet-loud-quiet dynamics, in other words, but not in that mugging-at-the-camera “like the original, but heavier!” way that a hundred terrible cover versions have enshrined as the standard template for rock bands playing away from home. You’ll recognise the tune as soon as they hit the chorus, but it’s not the tune as you’ve heard it before.

But does it work? Well, it’s notably less banal or infuriating than almost anything on the Radio 1 playlist at the moment, but then so is the rhythmic squeaking achieved by spinning my swivel chair while it’s sat on wet kitchen lino. Chances of El Dog pipping SiCo’s lapdog (or “Killing In The Name Of”) to the number one spot over Christmas? Zero. Chances of charting at all? Probably not as remote as you’d think, but still pretty unlikely (it’s free to download, which probably disqualifies it from the running anyway). Chances of El Dog being the one band that did a Christmas single that didn’t make me want to kill them immediately? Approaching unity. Unnecessary, but interesting.