"Hawking original Christmas songs has never been the easiest commercial venture, but Ohio duo Over the Rhine renounced the pursuit of mainstream success long ago. Snow Angels, its 2006 collection of wistful holiday music, didn't reach far beyond the band's devoted following, but it might be the best soundtrack since A Charlie Brown Christmas for feeling melancholy and lovesick in December. Over the Rhine's annual holiday shows promise to draw from Snow Angels and the best of their earthy, dark-roasted catalogue. The band sells its own coffee online and the piano-driven music practically begs to be mused upon over one hot drink or another. Pianist/husband Linford Detweiler crafts songs with gorgeous open spaces, and vocalist/guitarist/wife Karin Bergquist fills them with an emotional range that makes sure the meditative music still flirts and surprises."

- Seattle Weekly

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"Singer Karin Bergquist and multi-instrumentalist Linford Detweiler share songwriting duties, and with this set of original songs, they've crafted not just one of the year's best holiday albums, but one of its best, period. Knowing the season sparks a multitude of emotions, they explore loneliness, romance, hope, spirituality, wonder and forgiveness, subjects wrapped in music that's evocatively atmospheric and irresistibly melodic. "

- LOS ANGELES TIMES 12/17/07

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"Most Christmas music lands with the sickening thud of a fruitcake. It's treacly, larded and fake.

The veteran band known as Over the Rhine understand this completely, so they've sought to make their holiday album a dry-eyed assessment of this fraught season.

They've had some practice at it. The Ohio-based band, led by the husband-wife team of Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist, issued its first Christmas album 11 years ago, titled "The Darkest Night of the Year." Despite the name, the disk hardly blotted out the lighter aspects of the season. Like that CD, the new "Snow Angels" covers every emotional hue brought on by the day. They've nailed the particular ache of another year ending, when regret and gratitude do their sad and wondrous annual dance.

Hope and longing, sex and death all have their say in these songs. In "White Horse," the singer dreams of an escape that seems far away. In "New Redemption Song," there's an admission of all that's wrong in life, with a prayer it won't always be so.

Bergquist's high, quavering voice holds all the yearning and belief the songs require. She has the bluesy feel of a young Maria Muldaur, matched to the erudition of Eva Cassidy. The music of Detweiler sways lovingly between blues and jazz.

In "Goodbye Charles," he goes wholly for the former. It's an instrumental wink to Vince Guaraldi's brilliant soundtrack for "A Charlie Brown Christmas." Like that music, Detweiler's has a playful bass and a terse piano, landing halfway between the sprightly and the mournful.

Bergquist mines her sexy side in "North Pole Man," an acoustic blues come-on that could have been sung by Bessie Smith. A rethink on "Jingle Bells" turns the song into a chubby chaser's erotic fantasy about Santa.

Over the Rhine also re-wrote the traditional "O Little Town of Bethlehem," making it a comment on the current Middle East. Meanwhile, in "All I Ever Get for Christmas Is Blue," they give in wholly to personal sadness. Even in the final, obligatory song of hope, "We're Gonna Pull Through," the music sounds more tentative than its title suggests.

Yet there's something stirring about this as well. By wrapping up such an honest package about the season, Over the Rhine has given us a gift we can use. "

- NY Daily News 12/16/07

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"Over the Rhine make wonderful Snow Angels."

- FROM NY PRESS 12/7/06

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Over the Rhine continue its joyful sounds
By David Freeland

Linford Detweiler, half of the musical duo Over the Rhine, writes on his website, “We hope that Snow Angels is a record that becomes part of the landscape for small gatherings of people who love each other.” It’s a fitting description of a recording whose charm is exceeded only by its musical dexterity. Karin Bergquist, Detweiler’s wife and longtime artistic partner, has always been an exceptional singer, but here she shines in new, varied ways, sounding as girlish as Patty of the Andrews Sisters one minute, as torchy as Sarah Vaughan the next. “Darlin’ (Christmas Is Coming)” could be a long-lost track from Phil Spector’s holiday album, and the emphasis on spirituality (“snow is falling like forgiveness from the sky”) adds depth and a sense of wonder at the beauty of the natural world.

Over the Rhine (named after a struggling, historic Cincinnati neighborhood) has been around since the late 1980s, with members coming and going—although the Detweiler/Bergquist axis has remained steady. Categorizing the group would be useless: It’s been compared (unfairly) to everything from 10,000 Maniacs to contemporary Christian music for its humanistic concern with religious questions (Detweiler is the son of a Protestant minister). Big companies like Virgin and IRS have signed up for a few albums apiece, but OTR has found just as much success working on its own, using word of mouth to build awareness. Overall it has done a remarkable job, although Detweiler occasionally betrays just a hint of frustration at not having gained wider recognition.

“We’ve been waiting for one song to sort of shoot up on the horizon and create a little fireworks display,” he admits, speaking from his Ohio farm (dogs are barking in the background). “I’ve often wondered: Have we suffered from being so isolated? That’s been a real advantage for us in terms of finding ourselves creatively. But the downside is that I think if we lived in a place like New York or Nashville, the amount of work that Karin would be able to do, apart from Over the Rhine, would be significant.”

Detweiler is his wife’s biggest fan, and he supports her with beautifully rendered piano solos on Snow Angels. Together, they’ve made an album bursting with life and creativity, rooted in spiritual issues but set apart through a pacifistic stance (“Put away your swords,” Karin sings on the yearning “Little Town”).

“Spiritually, I’ve been a little bit all over the map. I’ve certainly abandoned my childhood faith, and then have struggled to come back to a place that makes sense to me. As difficult as it can be to reconcile with everything I know, I personally can’t rule out the idea of a benevolent, supreme creator: an artist, a conflicted, creative force. Every time I see the night sky, flung full of stars, something awakens in me.”

- MUSIC FOR PEOPLE WHO LOVE

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Positively Yeah Yeah Yeah’s ANNUAL Hip Holiday Music feature
by John M. James

Ten years since they treated fans to their first holiday CD, The Darkest Night of the Year, Over the Rhine returns with Snow Angels on the Great Speckled Dog imprint. Somewhere between Billie Holiday, Nat “King” Cole, the Cowboy Junkies, blues voodoo and an Appalachian church’s serenity simmers the amber honey confessional waltz of duo Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler. Candle lit with snowflakes falling, these eleven perfect originals are playful, unashamedly romantic, and heart paining redemptive. One cover of sorts fits right in - a softly possessed interpretation of “Jingle Bells” into “One Olive Jingle” - and a piano instrumental finds inspiration from Vince Guaraldi’s Charlie Brown Christmas in “Goodbye Charles.”

This is a Great Speckled Dog recording.
Produced by Over the Rhine and Brad Jones.