It’s December again, and that of course means that a lot of our favorite artists and those we’ve never even heard of before are going to cover classic holiday songs from across the pop spectrum. Contributing her own unique piece of this tradition in the form of a rousing “O Holy Night” in 2020 is none other than Grey DeLisle, and whether you’ve heard her music prior to now or not, something in my gut tells me you’re going to be quite intrigued by what her latest performance has to offer. With a sense of bucolic balladry guiding her stylization of the composition, DeLisle joins some pretty impressive ranks here.

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The warmth of this singer’s pastoral drawl is what makes this “O Holy Night” such a difficult version to resist in comparison to what I’ve heard a lot of other acts doing with it in recent times, but I’m reticent to call this a straight countrified cover. There’s absolutely a folkiness to the tone of DeLisle’s delivery that makes it feel almost bohemian close to the start of the song, but all in all, the tinge of Americana in the center of the performance is probably the most defining aesthetic for me in this single.

You don’t have to see the music video for “O Holy Night” in order to appreciate its organic nature, but when taking in the visual component of this single, it’s all the more obvious just how fat-free a product DeLisle’s rendition of this song truly is. She isn’t illustrating an elaborate picture in this material at all – she’s being straightforward and unfanciful with us, which was perhaps the best way that she could have recorded something as easily identifiable (and therefore open to criticism from across the spectrum) as a composition like this one is.

There might be a lot of artists covering “O Holy Night” at the moment, but if you ask me Grey DeLisle’s version is one of the best indie cuts you’re going to get your hands on ahead of Christmas Day in 2020. That’s no small statement for a critic like myself to make, but nonetheless I think that after giving this song and its music video a casual sit-down you’re going to understand and appreciate my sentiments a little more fully. DeLisle is a very talented musician, and she’s not holding anything back from us in this hot new release.

John McCall