Citizens – Repeat the Sounding Joy Review

After releasing one of the best worship albums of the year Seattle based Citizens are back with a Christmas album, that combines their modern indie hipster style of music with classic carols you will know and love – these are carols but not quite how you may remember them from traditional carol services – they have more passion and energy and a great indie folk vibe that makes them perfect for listening to as you wear skinny jeans and sip a latte from an independent coffee shop as you sit writing in your moleskin journal or posting a picture of your beard to instagram from your iPhone.
As well as their own takes on Joy to the World, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, O Come O Come Emmanuel and Silent Night there is one original song on this EP – Come and Stand Amazed which is a great song full of deep theology and passionate, heartfelt prayer to Jesus, God incarnate.
This is a short album with only 5 songs, and only one original, but unlike a lot of Christian bands who release Christmas albums Citizens have a least taken the time to do their own take on these familiar songs rather than just churning out another album that sounds just like all the other Christmas albums already out there and you get a real sense that they actually are properly worshipping out of joy rather than recording a Christmas album because it is the done thing. Like Sufjan Stevens before them this album deserves to go down as a cut above the usual Christmas fodder and is well worth a spot on your MP3 player or CD player. Stand out track for me was O Come O Come Emmanuel where it is clear they really are rejoicing over the birth of Jesus.

{NB full disclosure – I would like to thank MergePR for providing me with advance access to this EP before it released.}