"Sugar-frosted...
It's time for an indie-pop Christmas! In the spirit of the season Sunday Records bestow upon us the gift of a perfectly formed Christmas covers e.p. from Sugar World. Never mind all that manufactured pop rubbish what we really need at this time of year are some scuzzy guitars and bargain price synths.
How can you not enjoy this record? It would certainly take a cold, Scrooge like heart not to melt just a little.
Ahead of a proper album next year ex Naps members Katryn Macko and Ryan Stanley, give us four little Christmas gems.
Lead track, Low's Just Like Christmas, is a fantastic Mary Chain via Phil Spector tale featuring snow, and the yearly search for that Christmas feeling, a cheap rhythm box rubs up against a plaintive jangle. And yes, there really is a song called, Anorak Christmas! It's a synth pop plea from the heart that leaves us hoping for a happy ending.
Blue Christmas makes an appearance and here is drenched in fuzz guitar distortion, rushing by in one minute fifty one seconds of Christmas heartbreak.
Finally we get a Carpenters cover, was there ever a band that better summed up the happy/sad tug of war feeling that hangs over this time of year? Merry Christmas Darling is reassuringly full of yearning in this delicately roughed-up version.
Four songs later and you just might begin to feel that it really is Christmas...at last. "
- reviewed by Simon Heavisides
Released via Sunday Records on December 4, 2020
CDs available here: https://sundayrecords.bandcamp.com/album/a-sugar-christmas