Various Artists
Punk Goes Christmas

Even if you love Xmas and everything about it, it’s hard not to be impressed by the unbridled psychosis of “This Christmas Day (I’ll Burn It to the Ground)” by Set It Off. As the band shifts from snow-blizzard hardcore to sugarplum punk, singer Cody Carson sneers “Oh my God it’s here/This awful time of year.” As for the rest of the record, Sid Vicious is currently puking up candy canes and razor blades at the notion that Yellowcard’s emo offering “Christmas Lights” and Crown the Empire’s glorified boy-band ballad “There Will Be No Christmas” qualify as punk. As for New Found Glory’s “Nothing for Christmas”, if that means no New Found Glory records, T-shirts, or G-strings will be under the tree, that sounds like a deal. If you’re going to call yourself punk, people, the least you could do is write a song about shitting in mincemeat mix or using eggnog as the secret ingredient for that perfect marlin mohawk.