OK, this is a first-rate swing outfit. They play nice, they play tight, the ensemble work is good and the charts excellent. So why is this album the festive equivalent of the Hindenburg disaster? I’ll tell you why – Oppdahl sings. Oh boy, does he sing. Is it good singing? If you like the sound of someone yodelling with molasses then Oppdahl is your man. If I had to put him somewhere on the vocals spectrum it would be between Billy Eckstein and a bath-time Bugs Bunny. But to business… Oppdahl stuck to swing throughout the bop revolution. A Harry James acolyte with a vibrato wider than a fjord and phenomenal breath control he was a staple of many Scandi big bands of the period. He was also fond of the pop and described as having “a liver the size of Belgium”. That aside, the bands he put together swung like a saloon door in a force nine gale. Things kick off here with ‘Sleigh Ride’, which bounces along nicely until the arrangement introduces a solo section for the nyckelharpa or Swedish ‘key fiddle’ – not an unpleasant scrapey sound (in fact I rather like it), but perhaps not here. Then Oppdahl sings. The effect is indescribable. Why? one asks oneself. Then track two opens and things brighten immediately, like arctic sun to a man adrift on a berg of dark atonality: very nice romping brass here and a non-cheesy rendition of ‘Rudolph’. Then the singing again. Is it singing? To be honest it sounds so unrefined, so elemental, it could be issuing from some lumpen hirsute beast of Norse myth. I digress… I digress because it is so unsettling. Do I make myself clear? There is more of this: ‘Jingle Bells’, ‘Silent Night’ (natch), ‘The Little Drummer Boy’… All of it wrecked by Oppdahl’s wounded howling. I lay down with a very large eggnog and stuffed snow in my ears.