After making a bit of a splash on their relaunch with their summer single "Last First Love" there has been little emerging from Rising HQ. It turns out that the reason for this were injuries sustained by guitarist Chris Logan in a freak man v bus incident which laid him up for nearly four months.
Now ahead of a new album "Moving On" due in early 2018 comes a Christmas single."This Special Time Of Year".
After opening with some Christmas bells and and a few muted power chords they proceed to amass as many references to the Festive season as they can manage in three and a half minutes.so the usual suspects of snow, mistletoe and kisses make an appearance.It does also make reference to the actual nativity story and also offers a message of hope that "the world's at peace tonight for a while" so deserves some kudos for that.
There is a little touch of nostalgia about it, there are intentional nods towards Phil Spector and the seventies with Slade and Wizzard when Christmas songs were king. It is a bit schmaltzy in places but there are a couple of things that make this worthy of attention, the vocals of Chantelle McAteer who sells it with such sheer enthusiasm, that you fully expect her to be checking the skies for the first flakes of snow, and the fact that it is attached to a singalong chorus that could easily have been used on a song playable all year.
Release Date: 08/12/2017