Subject matter aside, OCMS XMAS sounds pretty much like other OCMS LPs. 

It’s a package of playful, string-band songs – nine holiday originals, plus remakes of “Holly Jolly Christmas” and “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” – that mostly stick to the secular. And when Old Crow Medicine Show does go for the spiritual, it’s in a good-natured way, as when the band imagines an American-born Jesus on “Bethlehem, PA” and goes rockabilly on “All about a Baby.”

“It’s all about a baby/with a mama named Mary/rocking in a cradle/talking about peace and loving and sharing,” the Medicine Men sing with assistance from the Secret Sisters. 

Alongside their hollering from the holler, Old Crow toss in influences from Ireland to Dixieland to Piedmont to porches everywhere south of the Mason-Dixon Line while singing about bootleg booze on “Corn Whiskey Christmas,” commercialization and broken families on “Store-Bought Christmas” and traditions both scary (“Krampus Night”) and bittersweet (“Grandpa’s Gone).” 

As it goes, the album might not appeal to lovers of traditional Christmas music, but Old Crow fans–even those who detest holiday sounds–will enjoy an OCMS XMAS.