A Louder Christmas!

It’s that time of year again folks.  The holiday cheer and beer, gift money and/or socks from grandpa and grandma, and, of course, Christmas mass.  Now, if you were raised in a modest church-going community, you surely know the agony of an hour long Catholic mass.  And if you were raised properly by God-fearing people like I was, you know the pains and awful mental strife of three masses in one week (Catholic schooling far far behind me and I still capitalize God…arg).  During the holidays it only gets flashier, which usually consists of a community choir made up of people between 45 – 65 years of age, a shit-ton of unnecessary frankincense burning, and if you’re lucky a bell choir.  All this extra song and lights and pizzazz and blazay blah — it only translates to a much longer ordeal.

Solution!  Have a heavy metal or hardcore or metalcore or thrashcore or screamo band play at your Christmas mass this holiday season.  This notion sounds nonsensical until you hear Carol of the Bells as performed by the band August Burns Red (a personal favorite of mine).  The intense, exceptionally exquisite remake of this classic tune is matched by none, and it certainly would break up the monotonous routine ceremony we burden ourselves with every year.  Find out for yourselves.  Go to  http://www.myspace.com/augustburnsred to listen to their Carol of the Bells or even  O Come O Come Emmanuel.  Close your eyes and imagine the shear awesomeness if one or both of these tunes were performed at a Catholic Christmas mass, abruptly after gospel reading.  Oh Gosh, heck yeah!