Sleigher

Ben Folds

Release Date: October 25, 2024

“Christmas is constant,” says Ben Folds. “Allowing you to take stock of what’s different, to understand who you are and all the ways you’ve grown and changed.”

That notion lies at the heart of Folds’ brilliantly titled new holiday collection, Sleigher.

Built on an eclectic mix of originals and reimagined classics, the album examines the passage of time through the lens of Christmas, reflecting on memory, loss, and longing as it explores the variety of ways the yuletide season marks the chapters of our lives.

The songs are playful here, full of humor and cheer, but they’re also laced with an inescapable sense of melancholy, a looming darkness that always seems to hover around the periphery of those late December nights.

Folds’ performances, meanwhile, flirt with the standards while stretching the boundaries of tradition, at times offering up flashes of Vince Guaraldi and Burt Bacharach while still remaining true to Folds’ singularly virtuosic brand of off-kilter indie pop.

The result is not so much a Ben Folds Christmas record as it is a Ben Folds record set at Christmas, a meditation on the inexorable turning of the calendar and our ever changing selves as observed at the most wonderful—and challenging—time of the year.

A1. Little Drummer Bolero

A2. Sleepwalking Through Christmas

A3. Me and Maurice

A4. Christmas Time Rhyme

A5. Waiting for Snow

B1. We Could Have This (feat Lindsey Kraft)

B2. The Christmas Song

B3. The Bell That Couldn’t Jingle

B4. Xmas Aye Eye

B5. You Don’t Have to be a Santa Claus