The Lost Christmas Eve by Trans-Siberian Orchestra (CD, Oct-2004, Lava Records USA)

In going about my life, I heard a song. It was an amazing song. I love Classical music, and I love hard rock. This song I heard had both of these styles in it. They were intertwining in a majestic style I never knew was possible. This song harkened back to the magic of Christmas in all of it's powerful beauty. And so I searched for this song. Everywhere I turned, I had to find this song. Finally I found it. It is the fourth track on the album "The Lost Christmas Eve" by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. The song is titled "Wizards in Winter." I had to buy this album.
This has got to be some of the best music I have heard in a long, long time. In a nutshell, what the Trans-Siberian Orchestra has done is that they have taken the best of Classical music and mixed it with the best of rock music. This is most appearant in the song "Wizards in Winter." Really, though, they touch on most styles of music. If you like any type of music, you will find something you like here. They have blues, rock, classical, jazz, etc.. All of it, though, is Christmas music.
Amazingly enough, this album comes with a booklet. "So what, most CDs do?" I can here you asking. Well, the booklet that comes with this album is 44 pages long and has two short stories written in it. The first one is story God sending his youngest angel sent to Earth to find the one person that "best continued the work of His Son on Earth." This story, as made appearant by the albums title, takes place on Christmas Eve. I was surprised to find that the story was well written and was actually quite heart-warming. The second story was a re-write of the first one and was written in a way to explain the songs on the CD. The music on the CD actually accompanies the story in the booklet. Or vice-versa. Whichever way you choose to look at it works.
Now, back to the music. No matter which style they do, it is good. The Jazz is very Jazzy, the Blues makes you feel like your sitting in a bar listening to a guy in sunglasses is banging away on a piano. (Which is very good, because that is what's happening in the story at this point on the CD.) "Christmas Jam" just plain ROCKS! (That is, in fact the one listening to as I write this.) "Remember" uses Members of the American Boychoir for the singing and has a very nice nostalgic sound to it. "Wish Liszt" is just plain a trip. It has some of the most complex and technical Piano playing I have heard in a long time. This is very approapriate, in seeing that it is paying tribute to the most complex and technical classical composers in history, Franz Liszt. A very cool song, overall.
With myself being a classical pianist, I was very pleased when I heard "Christmas Canon Rock". The "Pachebel Canon", also known as "Canon in D" has always been one of my favourite songs and has even inspired some of my own song writings. "Christmas Canon Rock" has to be the best version of the "Pachebel Canon" I have ever heard. I usually don't like lyrics added to Classical pieces, but the lyrics they added to it are beautiful and do not detract from the music of the song. If anything, they add to it. The singer they had for this song is very, very skilled to say the least. She is capable of holding out a not for the longest time. Very, very beautiful work on this one.
The Trans-Siberian Orchestra is, to say the least, amazing. This CD, with 22 amazing songs on it, is well worth the purchase. I highly recomend that you pick it up.