There has not been, in the last 30 years of Rock and Roll, a music artist that has been capable to take Winter Holiday classics to the next level and transform them in precious little gems of Surf, Hard-Rock and Metal quite like the Boston Guitar Supremo and singer/songwriter Gary Hoey has been able to do so far in his remarkable career.
Through an experiment that was born back in 1995 and released the same year, called Ho! Ho! Hoey, where Gary Hoey decided to give a full instrumental Rock treatment to classics like Jingle Bells, White Christmas and Auld Lang Syne, among others, Hoey has started a rather successful tradition, in the last 3 decades, by touring the United States performing live shows made of sole Winter Holiday classics Hoey recorded.
A tradition that has seen and still sees Hoey selling out the Ho! Ho! Hoey Tour dates year after year with enormous success, while releasing, from time to time, also new records with more revised Holiday festive classics, now officially part of the Ho! Ho! Hoey! Series.
In the past few weeks, the American Guitar Maestro has just released a new chapter of this successful music series, called Ho Ho Hoey: Christmas Time Is Here, in our opinion, one of the most successful releases of the Ho! Ho! Hoey Holiday saga to date, where each of the 10 tunes included in the new record gets a proper heavy guitar-drenched treatment from the formidable guitarist and singer/songwriter, all played and arranged beautifully by Hoey himself.
From the fiery, almost grunge-y opener of It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas to Hoey's own Hard-Rock fuelled version of The Nutcracker, the Christmas Time Is Here album is a festival of heavy, powerful and exquisitely executed Rock guitar riffs, where Hoey's class exudes stunningly at every point, even when his guitar sound becomes a little tender and softer, as shown in his own versions of classics like the album's title-track (which includes also, as Special Guests, Hoey's son Ian on guitar and Grammy nominated Latin violinist, Jesús Florido) or O Holy Night, among others.
There is also time for the American artist to showcase a previously unreleased and the only non-instrumental (and only original track off this charming record) song of the album, a rather well-penned slow Blues tune called Christmas Miracle, where Gary Hoey displays, once again, why he is rightly considered one of the most talented, exciting and charismatic Blues and Rock guitarists in the contemporary music scene.
Ho Ho Hoey: Christmas Time Is Here is not only a rather fun record to spin at Christmas time on everyone's record player, but also yet another demonstration of the enormous talent and creativity of one of the most loved and respected American Rock and Roll artists around.
Ho Ho Hoey: Christmas Time Is Here is out now and can be purchased via Gary Hoey's Official Website
