Ten Out Of Tenn, various artists (Ten Out Of Tenn)

This is essentially a musician's club featuring 10 Nashville musicians who have banded together to get their alt-pop-rock music heard in a city that specializes in two other kinds of music. They have a couple of compilations out of their non-holiday music, and now they have this one for 2008. Aussie transplant Butterfly Boucher kicks things off with her own "Cinnamon & Chocolate," a ballad of holiday hope; Jeremy Lister's "Santa's Lost His Mojo" has the jolly elf dealing with job burnout; Katie Herzig does a folkie "Silent Night"; "Raise the Tree" is a nice holiday ballad by Trent Dabbs; K.S. Dabbs asks "Why Are Mom and Daddy Fighting on Christmas?"; Erin McCarley renders a downtempo and portentious "Little Drummer Boy"; Andy Davis strums out a nice original, "Christmas Time"; Tyler James borrows the martial beat McCarley wasn't using on her performance for his own "Sentimental Christmas"; Griffin House puts a mildly country spin on "O Holy Night"; and Matthew Perryman Jones does an almost David Lynch treatment on "O Come O Come Emanuel." This is a listenable collection from people we hope we'll hear from again.