Theocracy - All I Want For Christmas

It’s no great stretch to say that most rock and metal Christmas songs are unusual, purely from the perspective of tonal whiplash. Sure, if the Little Drummer Boy was cranking out blast beats there might be a bit less dissonance, but your regular Yuletide fare tends toward sleigh bells and crooning rather than crash cymbals and gutturals. Still, that doesn’t mean people haven’t had fun with the formula and no-one has seemingly had more fun with it than Theocracy. 

This is your fair warning – even by the standards set by rock and metal, this is still a weird track, capital W stuff. Theocracy are an American power metal band making some excellent European-style stuff (fun fact, lead vocalist Matt Smith used to be the entirety of the band, layering all his vocal and instrumental performances over each other to complete the tracks) and they’ve got a history with Christmas tracks, not least because they’re a Christian band by their own admission. But they are determined to be playful with it, by all presented evidence. I won’t spoil all the twists, but you can look forward to the following from All I Want For Christmas; not being a Mariah Carey cover, for starters. Alongside that there’s one of the best Christmas-themed choruses on record, several genuinely funny mini-skits about beloved Christmas characters, and – frankly bizarrely – there’s a bluesy breakdown about Santa working in a coal mine. In a five-minute European style power metal track. It is, from start to end, hear to believe. 

So whether you’re looking for a great track, a good laugh or just a dose of that Christmas spirit via the medium of guitar and wailing vocals, this will tick every box and a few more that you didn’t even know were an option. From everyone here at Rock Song of the Week – Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and we hope Santa brings you all that you asked for and a bottle of the good stuff on top.