Album: Various Artists, All Ready for the 25th (Sartorial)

There's something about the smartarse sass of indie attitude that curdles the Christmas spirit. It's the downfall of this left-field collection, particularly the punky adolescent antagonism of the Psychic Pussies' "Sickmass".

Apart from David Coulter's two brief, spooky bowed-saw miniatures of "Silent Night" and "In the Bleak Midwinter", it's mostly inappropriate covers like Serious Drinking's "Don't You Want Me Baby (Jesus)?" and Department S's "I Believe in Father Christmas"; the best are Robyn Hitchcock's suitably astringent take on Captain Beefheart's "There Ain't No Santa Claus on the Evenin' Stage" and Cold Specks' version of Mary Margaret O'Hara's "Christmas Evermore",

Download: Silent Night; Christmas Evermore; There Ain't No Santa Claus on the Evenin' Stage