Huntington Beach, California-based Indie label No Sleep Records returns with the sixth installment of their popular Christmas compilation. This time around, the comp features work from Alcoa (Derek Archambault of Defeater) as well as Daisyhead, Kill Wealthy Dowager, Lee Corey Oswald and Seasons Change.

Alcoa’s cover of Blue Christmas, made famous by Elvis Presley in 1964, leads the whole jolly compilation off. Archambault’s calming voice, matched only by the achy echo of his acoustic guitar, soothes the listener into the true blue sadness of the song. Next up is Daisyhead’s cover of Silent Night, which sounds almost straight out of the 80’s with its near glam rock pounding drums and powerful vocals. After that, Kill Wealthy Dowager puts a punk rock spin on the holidays with “Christmas at Ground Zero”, a song about...well...Christmas, at Ground Zero. And nuclear holocaust. Which is very festive of them. Lee Corey Oswald takes the next slot with “A Chill Time to All and To All a Chill Time”, another soft acoustic ballad sung by vocalist Lee Ellis that works within the parameters of your typical sad Christmas song. Finally, Seasons Change finishes off the record with their song “Holidays”. The song’s acoustic pop-punk sound is virtually a rehash of every other acoustic pop-punk song, but without sounding bad.

Altogether, “No Sleep ‘Till Christmas 6” works really well as a quick little group of holiday songs, but fails to meet the standard created by years’ past compilations. With only five songs, it seems that No Sleep Records may have had a hard time gathering artists to record a song this year. Still, the compilation is nice to have at all this time of year.

The compilation can be downloaded here.

Songs to check out: “Blue Christmas”, “Silent Night”

Rating: 6.5/10