Album: Glasvegas, A Snowflake Fell (And it Felt Like a Kiss) (Sony BMG)

The add-on bonus EP is becoming a harbinger of Christmas, with last year's deluxe Back to Black package followed this year by similar deals from Duffy, Coldplay and now Glasvegas.

This six-track offering is by far the best, and for me, preferable to the band's debut album. It presents a more downbeat, lifelike picture of the festive season, reflecting the despair which afflicts so many in December. For starters, there's the suicidally lonely lad urging his ex to "Please Come Back Home" – perhaps the same one scarred by rejection in "Fuck You, It's Over": wailed over a guitar drone that's effectively shoegazing with a harder edge. James Allan's delivery of the title-hook is one of the more unexpectedly moving sounds heard on a Christmas album. Even more affecting is the homeless person of "Cruel Moon", sleeping in a "cardboard coffin" and bitterly aware that "homelessness is where the haar is", as the Scots mist chills his bones. Redemption, however, is twofold: the poignant title-track finds another loner wandering the streets desolate until the first snowfall cheers them, while the concluding "Silent Night" morphs from Allan's cracked Glaswegian burr into the standard version, an effect as heartwarming as the conclusion to It's a Wonderful Life.

Pick of the album:'A Snowflake Fell (and it Felt Like a Kiss)', 'Cruel Moon', 'Fuck You, It's Over'

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