Relient K

Few punks can coo as sweetly as Matt Thiessen, which helps this collection of standards (released just in time for Halloween 2007) occasionally achieve the frosty sheen of smooth jazz. Their Christian roots bear out in the generous share of Jesus' b-day anthems ("Angels We Have Heard On High"; an unfortunate Trans-Siberian orchestration of "Handel's Messiah"), but St. Nick gets nearly equal airtime. We'll take the seasonally themed rock ballads by the band's own hand ("Merry Christmas, Here's To Many More") over the standards-on-'roids ("I'm Getting Nuttin' For Christmas") any day.