There are plenty of recent examples of videogenic movie stars embarking on questionable musical pursuits, from Keanu Reeves to Scarlett Johansson, to name two whose rhythmic careers should have been throttled at birth. Zooey Deschanel, Hollywood's go-to kook, has actually recorded some remarkably pretty music. Volume One, her debut album with M Ward, the other half of She & Him, was as fine an example of tweetastic vintage-store pop as you would come across this side of Belle & Sebastian. Cute as a kitten and just as playful.
In fact, Deschanel excels at wistful, shimmery, Sixties-influenced anthems. So it is a pity that her band's new festive season album largely dips back further into musical history to offer a selection of mostly familiar standards that require real vocal oomph to make them swing, but instead have to rely on the singer's trademark fluffy style. Thus we get "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", "Baby, It's Cold Outside" and "Blue Christmas" in an absolutely stripped-down form, which lays bare the thinness of Deschanel's range. This candy-floss concoction makes Phil Spector's Christmas Album seem like the latest release from Rammstein.
As much as I love this twosome there is not much to get a purchase on here. M Ward's sparse guitar contributions on tracks such as the k.d. lang-ish "I'll Be Home for Christmas" are economical to the point of credit-crunch frugality, while Deschanel's croon on The Beach Boys’ "Little Saint Nick" would blow away on the slightest breeze. All of which is not to say that A Very She & Him Christmas is unpleasant. In fact, as dinner-party background music it might well go down as smoothly as a bottle of Baileys. But if you want something to grab you around the neck and demand your attention, you've definitely stumbled into the wrong place.
Watch She & Him perform "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?"
