The five dapper men that sing as The Overtones range in age from 33-38 years old and share a love of doo-wop and vocal harmonizing. According to legend, they formed a design firm expressly for the purpose of being able to work on their harmonies while they worked and it was during one of their design gigs they were discovered by a talent scout. After their first four albums all went Top 10 in the UK, the guys have released their first full-length Christmas album in 2015: Good Ol' Fashioned Christmas.
The album debuted on the December 10th UK chart at number 24 and remained one of three Christmas albums in the Top 40 of the chart the following week along with Micheal Buble's Christmas and Kylie Christmas from Ms. Minouge. I was thinking straight-up acapella when I first saw the album cover and was surprised to hear the fellas weave their harmonies across a full musical complement. While Timmy Matley's leads remind me of Justin Timberlake in the best way, it is the bass man of the group, Aussie Lachie Chapman's voice that gets my undivided attention each time he steps up front to sing lead.
That voice, pouring thickly through my Grados like the most decadent hot cocoa, is divine - most especially on the original song with the unoriginal title of "This Christmas" and the outer monologue of "Driving Home For Christmas", which closes out the eleven song album. (It should be noted that they had previously released four of these songs on the Limited Christmas Edition of their 2013 album, Saturday Night At The Movies.) If you like the Holiday musical stylings of Michael Buble and Pentatonix, you just might like The Overtones' Good Ol' Fashioned Christmas. I sent a copy to my dear old Mum. And if you're into that sort of thing, there is also a track by track commentary version of the album on Spotify HERE.
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