MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: NAMING THE TWINS - SING THE WINTER AWAY

Here it is still five days until Christmas, and you're already sick of all your usual festive music choices. Why not go a little different with an East Coast winter warmer, from Nova Scotia's popular folk duo Naming The Twins. Kath Glauser and Robbie Smith have put together a collection that will spice up the whole season, as it covers Christmas and has songs that have to do with all winter as well.

Staying away from the same old tunes, this set features 12 brand-new originals, mostly composed by Smith with some help along the way by Glauser and a couple of others. He's tapped into traditional folk, whether it's the '60's feel-good boy-girl vocal style, or jumping in the wayback machine for melodies and arrangements with Elizabethan (the first one) style. These feature harp, whistles, recorders, dulcimer, harpsichord and more, old-school instruments for soothing ballads and winter-warming melodies. But listen closer, and these are have modern lyric themes mixed in as well. Plus there's lots of fun along the way too, with Christmas On The Shrimp Boats and Klondike Christmas making spirits bright.

With snow and cold occupying five months of our lives (or more some years), it makes sense to have music that reflects that. Naming The Twins get us through the holidays and point us toward spring with this Christmas/winter collection.