This is an album that should be approached with great care.  I love Savatage probably even a little more than most people, so any project with members of the band on it I will probably buy.  So in 1996 I bought the first TSO album, and enjoyed half of it.   So when this new one was released I was the first person in line at the local store to pick it up...and was quite pleased and disappointed at the same time.  My first complaint is that not all the songs are metal-like.  I would have been quite happy with a cd full of Christmas tunes turned into instrumentals with a few of those New York vocalists on it and Zak Stevens and Jon Oliva singing the rest, all nice and metallic and oh so Savatage-ish.  Which isn't the case, and brings me to complaint number two.   Zak Stevens nor Jon Oliva take the spotlight vocalwise, not once. 

But with all of this put aside, there are some really superb Christmas tunes, X-mas music done MY way, the metal way.  "The Ghosts of Christmas Eve"  is a nice opener, kind of soft and beautiful...while "The World that She Sees"...that IS Savatage!  And whoever is singing lead on that is doing his best to sound like Zak, and almost had me fooled in some places.  Classic Savatage Christmas style, I love it!  Worth the price of the album alone.  "The Three Kings and I (What Really Happened)" is the kind of song I really dont' care for on this disc, it helps advance the story further (see below for more on that), but after that original listen to get a grasp of the story, its not the kind of thing I will punch up to hear again.   Its sort of a bluesy jazz thing, not exactly my style, and it seems to drag on forever.  "The Music Box" is a very stripped sounding song, that kind of does remind me of a music box, however its very touching and sorrowful, and it appealed to me.  "Christmas Canon", is a piano/violin traditional sounding Holiday song with a children's choir doing all the vocals, its very pretty too.  From the description of these few songs you can see the versatility of this disc, and each song is fitting, revealing more parts to the story.

The instrumentals are the strong point however.  "Boughs of Holly" is as grand and huge as anything on the first album.  "Midnight Christmas Eve" is touching and beautiful, lighter in tone, with some very nice guitar solos and riffs.   "Applachian Snowfall" has much in common with "First Snow" off of "Christmas Eve and Other Stories", so if you love one, you'll love the other.   Think of it as a sequel.  "The March of the Kings/Hark the Herald Angel" is absolutely beautiful too.  There's no way you can't love this.   It seems a little more unique in some ways than the other instrumentals but still has that epic Savatage quality that reminds you of huge broadways plays and big motion picture productions.  Their instrumentals are huge bombastic epics. 

The other strong point of this album is that it all follows along a story, like Savatage's albums have lately.  Its a very touching and beautiful Holiday story having to do with an angel that is sent to Earth on a quest on Christmas Eve, to leave the one thing behind that would benefit all of mankind, but can bring nothing with him from the heavenly world.  A child who is questioning the truths of Christmas gets the attention of the angel on her quest and she comes to the side of the child, who is discovering a trunk in the Attic of her house that is full of the magic of Christmas.  And so it begins and the stories that are  unraveled with the help of the Angel, the trunk and the joys of Christmas past.

Overall, I do recommend this cd, for several reasons.  On a musical level, the musicianship is very high, and where else are you going to find metal guitar driven Christmas instrumentals?  and Savatage styled Christmas songs?  The more traditional sounding songs will appeal to most everyone.  Plus the story is beautiful and told quite well with just the songs alone, with the addition of the story included in the booklet plus the inserts between songs explaining more parts to the story.  As a whole, it is a work of art, as individual songs, each have their strengths and weaknesses, and various styles.  There is no standout track like "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24"  was on the first album, but I think "The Christmas Attic", overall, is a more solid disc.  Next time, I just hope they let Zak sing some, he can blow any of these vocalists away.