What with December being a good few hours old, it now feels borderline alright for Christmas songs to emerge from their somnolent, mercifully lengthy hibernation, dusted down like gaudy baubles for another brumal month’s torment. However, whereas Macca, Mariah et al. elected to knock out vulgar festive drivel, subversive Bristolian trio BEAK> have instead cobbled together the knock-out (Merry Xmas) Face The Future: reminiscent of the menace inherent to The Desert Sessions – Geoff Barrow’s atypically clear vocal recalling that of Josh Homme before Mark Ronson came along, and combining brilliantly with bright (if still largely guttural) instrumentation – it makes for a bracing listen, with the chillingly rhetorical question: “How can we face the future alone?” central to its crepuscular successes. That ‘all money raised by this single will go to the National Elf Service and The Mental Elf’ only serves to make it all the more essential a release still though, so dig deep into those pockets your paws are doubtless already lurking therein, and chuck a quid into the nonphysical collection box posthaste…

BEAK>’s Bandcamp.