Kate Rusby - Angels & Men

The Guardian 40

(Pure Records)

There’s a style that’s become synonymous with the 21st-century Christmas: the sound of a grown adult singing like a child, their breath misting on a window like a spray of fake snow, old classics being turned into virtuous, fragile facsimiles. Kate Rusby has one of these voices – pretty to many, mawkish to others – and it has little variety or power on her fourth collection of festive songs. Let It Snow and Deck the Halls are delivered in the same disengaged, delicate way; each lyric falls and then melts, leaving no mark behind. Modern songs such as Santa Never Brings Me a Banjo feel slushily tailored to tug the heart (“maybe it’s too tricky for the elves”, Rusby sings); heavenly gleam is only offered on the traditional ballad Paradise, which recalls the ambient atmospheres of Clannad. Overall, though, this feels like a John Lewis Christmas advert extended to 52 minutes, its mannered naivety never knowingly undersold.