My legal team has informed me that since Halloween is now over, I have immunity to address “the upcoming holiday season” as something that’s “right around the corner.” I’m not saying you need to hit pause on your 10-months-out-of-the-year playlists quite yet to switch over to whatever indie-rock-Christmas stuff you might be into, but as of this week it appears that new shoo-ins for those lists are beginning to trickle in.
Later this year, the annual Slow Xmas comp—created by Ben Hosley, the producer and occasional voice of wisdom heard on the Blank Check with Griffin and David podcast—will be returning with a new slate of alt-rock artists following in the footsteps of Speedy Ortiz’s Sad13, Wolf Parade’s Dan Boeckner, and Fire-Toolz. Death Valley Girls are kicking off the 2025 proceedings today with a new track called “Season of Dreaming,” a lightly haunting cut that balances the group’s reverb-y, inherently spooky garage-psych sensibilities against the warm feelings inspired by jingle bells. It’s kind of the perfect soundtrack for easing out of spooky season and into “the upcoming holiday season” season. “Being asked to write songs is our favorite, and this project was especially exciting,” shares the band’s Bonnie Bloomgarden. “December has such an extremely potent, crisp, and delicious energy, getting to analyze and focus on it to write a spell, to harness that energy, is so special and lucky!”
Fall under their spell below, and pre-order Slow Xmas 5—which additionally features tracks by Shannon Lay, Erick Slick, War on Drugs offshoot Nightlands, and more—via Bone Sound Inc.’s Bandcamp page here. For the first time, Slow Xmas will also be available physically in vinyl format—you can pre-order that here.
