I approach Julie Christmas from the stepping stone of post-metal. I discovered her through Battle of Mice’s A Day of Nights and her 2016 collaboration with Cult of Luna, not through Made out of Babies or her solo work. Her vocals floored me, oozing emotion and fitting impeccably with the rhythmic styles of both bands. Her proximity to hardcore and noise exposed me to new musical avenues, even as she raised the bar for post-metal. Appearing 14 years after her solo debut The Bad Wife, Ridiculous and Full of Blood was one of my most anticipated releases of 2024. While it may not be the greatest album of the year, it might be the most soulful.
Christmas’ sophomore record is both indescribable and exactly what you’d expect. Ridiculous and Full of Blood is at once a bloodbath and a hypnotic tapestry. Bass-heavy melodies and steadfast drums establish a driving rhythm, always the core of Christmas’ sound. Meanwhile, the guitars split their time among post-metal world-building, thick sludge, aggressive hardcore riffs, and cacophony. But this neat summary misses so much of what makes Ridiculous both ridiculous and Ridiculous. Christmas squeezes every stage of her career into 42 minutes, and ties it all together with her inimitable vocals. The result is an album unlike any other you’ll hear this year.
Ridiculous And Full Of Blood by Julie Christmas
Predictably, Julie Christmas unleashes the best extreme vocal performance of 2024. Christmas’ voice played the same transformative role in my life as Gorguts or The Velvet Underground’s instrumentation; she taught me that beauty has many shapes, and every heart has jagged edges. Ridiculous is no different. Balancing compelling melodies with heartfelt screeches, Christmas’ vocal roller coaster wows through its emotive power and dizzying variety. Early highlight “Not Enough” and centerpiece “The Lighthouse” drip with sarcasm, bury the listener with tortured screams, and offer glimpses of hope. Christmas’ excruciating attention to detail might be her greatest strength; just follow as her tone on “End of the World” whipsaws from word to word, from syllable to syllable. As always, her vocals don’t merely shine in isolation. Aided by her cryptic alliterative lyrics, Christmas’ cadence is inseparable from the ebb and flow of the music. Indeed, the vocals often drive the album’s emotional about-faces, like the uplifting second half of “Silver Dollars.” Christmas’ performance is a treat for newcomers and an even bigger treat for veterans.
Ridiculous and Full of Blood thrives in its creativity and falters in its simplicity. As cliché as it sounds, Ridiculous’ longer highlights feel like expansive journeys. “End of the World”1 and “The Lighthouse,” my frontrunners for song o’ the year, evolve from serene openings through rhythmic post-metal to heart-wrenching climaxes, evoking the best cuts of Mariner. Conversely, hardcore-tinged openers “Not Enough” and “Supernatural” showcase Christmas’ songwriting at its most frantic and its most expressive, respectively, belying their four-minute runtimes. No two of the album’s gems resemble each other, making each one singularly memorable. But highlights alone don’t make an excellent record. Nearly half of Ridiculous and Full of Blood misses the mark, especially when it settles into a dull routine. “The Ash” mars the first half with repetitive melodies, followed by the passable but forgettable “Thin Skin.” Even the best tracks have mediocre follow-ups; “Kids” sounds as catchy and as grating as Kidz Bop, while the haunting “The Lighthouse” leads into the goofy anticlimactic “Blast.” The album closes with the underwhelming “Seven Days,” a doomy affair with glimpses of inspiration caked in five minutes of boredom. Half of Ridiculous is full of blood, but the other half feels lifeless.
As I listen to “The Lighthouse” and tear up for what seems like the thousandth time, I feel like I’m underrating this album. But I had to hit the skip button to get here, and I’ll have to hit it twice again in a moment. Despite my best efforts, I’ve struggled to fall in love with half of this record. But its high points, a challenging medley that only Julie Christmas could conjure, have solidified her artistic voice and cemented her place as my favorite extreme vocalist ever. If the AMG staff is any guide, your mileage may vary; scroll down to the comments and you’ll find Dolph, Carcharodon, and KermitsTail calling me an underrating bastard. Warts and all, Ridiculous and Full of Blood deserves your attention. Julie Christmas will mow you down like a hurricane, and might even make your year.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Red Crk Recordings
Website: juliechristmas.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: June 14th, 2024
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