Think I'll start with my Christmas gifts last year. I know outside the 2012 time frame I set myself but I really didn't get to hear them properly till the new year.

So Kate Bush returns with 50 Words for Snow and it's a difficult album to embrace from the start... The first 3 tracks last half an hour and move at a glacier pace. The opening track Snowflake uses her son's vocals which follows on from the Director's Cut album and is my favourite of the three tracks - a simple piano / vocal ballad. Some say Ms Bush's vocals are on the decline but they are still a thing of beauty and so full of feeling. Safe to say even now I have no idea what she is singing about half the time but it really doesn't matter. The best two tracks are hidden in the second half of the album... Snowed In At Wheeler Street is a fantastic duet with Elton John about two lovers meeting across the centuries at various times. I'm no fan of Elton but this is the second time I've recently heard him guest on a female vocalist album (first was with Ann Wilson) and perhaps he is improving with age.
And so to the title track which features Stephen Fry counting down those 50 Words For Snow while Kate provides encouragement in the chorus. In places it's funny, in other it conjures up evocative images of winter. It's the most uptempo of the 7 tracks and as such stops the album being too laid back.
Whilst a great album it really is one you'll play in the winter wrapped up warm rather than laying on the beach in the summer


Nightwish have probably constructed one of the most over the top albums in recent years... Not so much throwing in the kitchen sink but included the dishwasher as well.
Orchestra ? check
Children's choir ? check
Uilean pipes ? check
Completely pointless instrumental bonus disc ? check

Imaginaerum is the second album featuring Annette Olzon on vocals and she sounds much more comfortable this time round. The album does disappear worryingly into Lloyd Webber territory at times but is consistently stronger than Dark Passion Play. The lead single Storytime carries a melody that Abba would have killed for and just lodges in the brain. Scaretale is a song teetering on the edge of lunacy but just about stays this side of listenable with a brilliantly deranged vocal delivery. The growls of Marco the bass player are still in place and best used in the chorus of Ghost River where he battles the children's choir for supremacy.....
Where Nightwish go after this is going to be interesting because once you've gone this far over the top, where is left to go ?