This isn't a Christmas album. Which is good thing, because after A Lump of Coal and A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector, the list of listenable Christmas albums is very, very short.

Greg Herriges, Stellaroma & Friends Revel and Ritual: Holiday Music for the World (Discover Music)

What Herriges does is take music from a wide variety of holidays and traditions (the album cover appears to be taken from a Holi celebration) and play them in a semi-traditional manner. I say "semi" because Herriges is a bouzouki player, an instrument strongly associated with Greek and Turkish music. Herriges doesn't necessarily play in a traditional style (on at least one track, Herriges seems to be playing the bouzouki as if it were a sitar), but all of these tracks share a particular sonic DNA.

This album does a wonderful job of showcasing the vast array of celebratory music that exists in the world--and bringing it all together into a cohesive document. Many of the pieces here are Herriges arrangements of traditional songs, but he throws in some original compositions of his own. The transitions between the two are seamless.

While I would be most happy to play this instead of the usual holiday spatter, I think the biggest audience for this album is fans of artists like Bert Lams or even Daniel Bachman. If you like to hear acoustic stringed instruments (guitar, bouzouki, etc.) played at their limits, there's an almost unlimited supply of that here. A real stunner.

Jon Worley