Article By: Pat ‘Riot’ Whitaker ‡ Edited By: Leanne Ridgeway
Appalachian North Carolina‘s practitioners of darkly transformative, otherworldly psychedelic doom, U.S. CHRISTMAS, have resurfaced with some welcome news.
The band’s incredible, awe-inspiring 2003 studio introduction, ‘Prayer Meeting‘, streaming below via Bandcamp, has been professionally remastered and will be made available in a limited offering. They will arrive in handmade, fire-branded wooden boxes from Hypershape Records in November, each one strictly unique and different from the previous one.
Besides an eight-panel digipak of new images to visually reboot the package, each will contain postcards and special gifts of nature collected by U.S. CHRISTMAS‘ own Nate Hall in the mountains surrounding Marion, North Carolina. Nate offered the following about this immensely significant release, saying:
“Some bands make demos. We made a record. We didn’t do this for a label, an agent, or anyone but ourselves. It was the first step toward what would become a series of connected works. This record marks a special time in my life, and I’m sure the other dudes agree.
Those days in the little trailer in Marion, NC were electric and filled with building power. Listen up, these are the sounds of our foundation.”
The U.S. CHRISTMAS recording lineup on the ‘Prayer Meeting‘ album consisted of Nate Hall (guitar and vocals), along with Tim Greene (drums), John Presnell (bass), and Matt Johnson (theremin).
‘Prayer Meeting‘ tracklist:
01. Death By Horses
02. Devil’s Flower
03. Lazarus
04. Your Soul
05. Mantis
06. Norpo
07. Under The Nails
08. Queen Of The World
09. Darling Corey
10. Gengivitis
11. Out
Active since 2002, U.S. CHRISTMAS has released three full-length albums through Neurot Recordings, as well as extensively toured the United States and Europe. Their unique music blends haunting atmospherics with aural spacey elements of massive heaviness, combining to create captivating expanses of enthralling emotion set to music.
It has been seven years since U.S. CHRISTMAS (sometimes referred to as USX) issued their latest studio album, the lengthy singular track, ‘The Valley Path‘. We are also including a stream of it here for anyone that has either missed out on this monumentally important act of eastern Americana or may just want to revisit both it and USX.
