Music This week

Christmas music is flooding the market and overflowing iPods,but if youve had your fill of Silent night,pick up Stings new album where he goes back to his north England roots,to holidays from childhood. Alongside traditional Christmas songs,youll hear some unusual compositions that dont speak of cheer.

The album almost has a chamber music feel to it with its handful of instruments,but this amazingly works in its favour as the intimacy of acoustic instruments exudes a feeling of warmth in the winter chill. Sting has claimed that the album was an effort to stay away from the cosy domesticity of secular Christmas carols. He does not fail,as he manages to bring in the celebratory mood of the season and the melancholy of long,cold nights. On the one hand,there are songs like the traditional There is no rose of such virtue,a gentle ode to Mary,and on the other theres the morbid Soul cake,where children ask for a delicacy that is traditionally meant for the dead. Dark forebodings also lace the brilliant rendition of Balulalow,a traditional Scottish lullaby,and The Burning Babe,a poem by 16th century Jesuit martyr Robert Southwell. Sting may not get you in the mood for carolling,but hell surely swaddle you up in the many layers of winter.

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