To my fans, family, and friends—

I’m really tired. Super tired actually…. I’ve been up for days. Honestly I’ve lost track of how long I’ve been in a more or less upright state, but it’s fair to say it’s been a while. For the last fourteen years I have released a Christmas/winter related track in order to share something special with the CXS community and celebrate the holidays together with you. Sometimes I produce completely original songs, occasionally they are traditional carols, and every now and then they are some mad hybrid of the two. It’s become a tradition in its own right, and it’s one that means a lot to me, as many of you have also expressed just how much you look forward to this annual event. Usually I put out a single song, but I have in the past under favorable winds been able to get out as many as two songs at once.   Sometimes, if luck is behind me, I  release my new Christmas song early in December— but more often than not I find myself fighting against a tide of difficulties in an unforgiving seasonal time crunch, racing against the diabolical Christmas clock and its ever looming date of 25th. Truth is, it matters little how justifiable any delay in production might be— nobody wants a Cruxshadows’ Christmas song in late January.

Although I had planned to release our 2024 holiday track on the genre appropriate date of Friday December 13th, I ran into some serious setbacks that placed the whole project in a state of relative jeopardy. I simply could not get the song into the necessary listenable state in time. I was afraid that this would in fact be “The Year Without a Cruxshadows’ Christmas Song.”

Now, having said all of that in an implied, forebodingly dramatic voice,   I have some relatively good news to share with all of you today… I have traded two cans of my sanity and a large box of sleep for a musical extravaganza that I will hereafter refer to as my new song. I made free use of that popular 16th century French banger “Noel Nouvelet” and mashed that up with a dash of the musical elements of everyone’s favorite 18th century Ukrainian public domain standard, Shchedryk (which was interestingly enough also incorporated into the non-public domain composition commonly known as “Carol of the Bells”). I then blended that together with my own songwriting expertise to yield a unique arrangement that is undeniably a thing that happened! The product of this unlikely matrimony bears a passing resemblance to the love child of nine inch nails and Manheim Steamroller…. Add electricity to this Yuletide Frankenstein’s monster and Voila— We have a Christmas song people! I call this minor X-mas miracle “Noel Nouvelet (A Heart in Winter).”  I would have loved to have had more time to get everything absolutely perfect, but even so, I have faith this song will worm its way into your Christmas song loving playlist!

The cover art for “Noel Nouvelet (A Heart in Winter)” is based around a painting titled “”The Keepsake (ce dont le coeur se souvient)” by Cruxshadows’ artist ‘in residence’ and favorite Australian, Dominique Kennedy. We collaborated to produce an image for the song that represents the chaos, the beauty, and the hope this new CXS song embodies.  Be sure to download the image as well as the lyrics to appreciate the full experience. Dominique’s website is www.dkennedyart.com . Go and check out her amazing paintings!

Go and download our song and tell everyone you know about it!! Otherwise NEXT CHRISTMAS I might have to record LAST CHRISTMAS, and if that happens there likely won’t be a NEXT CHRISTMAS after THAT!!

All slap-happiness and sleep deprived nonsense aside, I hope you love this song. It’s loud and distorted and unforgivingly Christmas-y… but it’s also heartfelt and surprisingly less cheesy than it sounds. I put a lot of myself into it, and I am as tired as I can be… but making music matters. Christmas matters… and more than that, you matter. So please download the song from our website, as well as any of the annual releases from past years you might have missed. And don’t forget to spread the word… with this small window of timeliness, we are relying on you to help us get the word out quickly!

The CXS holiday songs are available for download to everyone as donation-ware (when acquired directly from our website)— meaning that the new song and past tracks are presented in a pay what you like, paywall-free, no strings attached arrangement. We simply trust you to pay us what it’s worth to you… In other words, most people download the song for free and a handful of our most loyal supporters actually make a donation, and help keep Cruxshadows moving forward. Whatever your situation may be, it is my sincerest wish that this song brings you and those you care about, some little piece of joy this holiday season. Happy Christmas, have a brilliant next few weeks, in whatever way you celebrate. Thank you for your enduring support. 

Live Love Be Believe.