This one was actually released last year, and although they announced back then that this would be an annual re-occuring release, I at least would have expected that it would mean that there would be other bands on it, which obviously is not the case.

This one could well have been the next episode in Fearless' "Punk Goes ..." series, maybe something like "Punk Goes Christmasbells". Anyway, the bands featured all delivered either a new or traditional punked-up christmas song, although with many of these songs there isn't a lot of punk going on, I must say. Although there's some good efforts (like The A.K.A.'s synthesized rap version of Run DMC's song and MxPx at least shows some energy), most of these songs sounded pretty tame to me. To such an extend that I started wondering where the punkrocksound was to be found. I agree that punkmusic these days is not all about heavy guitars and pounding drumming, but some of these tracks could as well have been played by any pop-artist out there. Which makes me actually appreciate the From First To Last song, although it sounds pretty ridiculous with the stupid counting game, but it at least shows some speed. It's no surprise that many of the poppier, or call it emo-bands were asked to contribute I guess. Furthermore, the songs by the biggest names here (i.e. Blink 182, Something Corporate, New Found Glory) have been released previously. Nerf Herder's hidden track at least made me laugh a bit with their "Santa has a mullet"-song.

There's not really one standout track in my opinion, and I can't see me listening to this with a bunch of friends around the Christmas tree either. So this is nothing more than a gimmicky release, and as it goes with these things, I'm afraid this one will be tucked away until December 24th at least. It's one of those releases you are stoked about, because you're curious to find out what punkmusic can do to songs, only to find out that there's not that much fun about it anyway. You could like this more if you're really into these tearjerkers and hypnotising shit. I only almost got hypnotised by the always emerging christmasbells.