If It's Too Loud...

The Christmas single from Sara Noelle has become a favorite annual tradition here at If It's Too Loud..., and 2024 is no exception. This year sees the original track "Little Dove" and Noelle's version of the traditional "Silent Night." "Little Dove" is the type of song that could be a great modern singer-songwriter track without a holiday theme. Just drop the jingle bells, and you have a hypnotic and engaging song, but if you love Christmas music, the jingle bells just add to it. It's a gorgeous track that focuses on Noelle's captivating vocals. For "Silent Night," Noelle takes a song we've all heard hundreds, possibly thousands of times and updates it to a more electronic, space age-esque song. It has that 60's/70's futuristic sound instead of the traditional hymn we're used to. Sara Noelle says of "Little Dove": "'Little Dove' was inspired by a mourning dove that lived outside my window for...

Considering Jeff and I met while working for a children's book company, you're always going to get our attention when you name your band/project Young Readers, and even more so when your press release calls your version of a Christmas classic "chilling." Considering it's an acapella version of a song we all know, how chilling can it be? When Young Readers do "Silent Night," the answer is pretty chilling. Jordan Herrera strips the song completely down to just his own voice (with the exception of the chorus at the very end) and a song we've all known and heard countless times over our lives has a new life. It's as unsettling as it is beautiful, but still sucks you in like no version that you've heard in years. "Silent Night" was written two hundred years ago (2018 is the actual two hundredth anniversary of the song) and Young Readers somehow inject new life into the song. You can listen to Young Readers's version of "Sile...