Send "She & Him " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Look away, all those who would claim to loathe Zooey Deschanel, for her cultural saturation point is nigh. Even now the fates have begun chiseling her porcelain visage onto the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Mount Rushmore (preferably capturing the bewildered look she gave Billy Crudup at the end of Almost Famous), honoring her decade-long career as Twee Personified. Starlet of successful indie flicks and failed blockbusters (Hitchhiker's Guide is underrated), elegant shiller of cotton, remarkably infuriating Top Chef cameo veteran, and faithful companion to what passes in 2011 for a rock star, she now brings us The New Girl, a ludicrous Fox sitcom that is, at the very least, less wantonly shat upon than Whitney. (Still, though, if you ever have the opportunity to train a pit bull to rip someone's throat out merely by your uttering a "code word," do make that code word "adorkable.") Ah yes, and there's She & Him, her Instagram-folk outfit with the quietly excellent M. Ward, proud parents of two cheerily frivolous full-length records many people took remarkable seriously, and why not. And now, a Christmas album. Various deluxe editions come packaged with a hat and/or mittens.If any or all of this enrages you (including her perfectly competent, bizarrely derided delivery of the National Anthem at a World Series game the other day), you oughta find other stuff to get enraged about. (Seriously, no worse than B- for vocal, and, okay, D+ for the dress.) Even if you don't buy into her It Girl/sex-symbol campaign, let us admit that Zooey's dainty, bright, appealingly low-swooping voice is Good for an Actress, and that's only, like, 15% pejorative. But A Very She & Him Christmas actually isn't hateable enough. Whether you come to praise or bury it, you're looking for something ultra-campy, overloaded with rampant corniness and gratuitous special guests, the holiday equivalent of Jenny Lewis' cover of "Handle With Care". Nah though. No Ben Gibbard, no Will Ferrell, no Mark Wahlberg, nobody. Lots of guitar-and-vocal skeletal sparseness, reaching for transcendent Charlie Brown melancholia but arriving instead at something merely dour. She sings, "They know that Santa's on his way," as though "Santa" were actually a plague of locusts. She should've recorded this while drunk....full text |
| Pastemagazine |
| Too early for Christmas music? Too bad. She & Him recently posted a cut from their forthcoming Christmas album, available for stream below. Not surprisingly, the quiet acoustic song has all the old-timey lovin’ that Zooey Deschanel’s vocals and M. Ward’s production have come to be known for. The song, “The Christmas Waltz,” is a cover of the old Frank Sinatra classic from 1957, and while Zooey is no Sinatra, her ’50s charm is hard to deny. The album, entitled A Very She & Him Christmas, is due out Oct. 24 on Merge Records....full text |
| Bbc |
| In recent years Christmas albums from indie stars have veered from the engagingly bleak (Bright Eyes’ A Christmas Album) to the wonderfully whimsical (Sufjan Stevens’ Songs for Christmas). A Very She & Him Christmas finds M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel offer up something slightly different in form but no less sincere, despite its jokey cover photo. In thrall to Yuletide offerings by the likes of Elvis Presley and The Beach Boys and strongly coloured by the duo’s admiration of classic 50s through 70s sounds, it was perhaps an inevitable release for a band like She & Him, and it fits their aesthetic to a tee. This isn’t the first time Deschanel has dabbled in festive fare, mind. As love interest for Will Ferrell in 2003’s sweet comedy Elf, she provides the film its very own Christmas miracle through the medium of song. The film was a huge success, balancing its humour with unchecked enthusiasm for its themes and deep affection for its characters (even those who resided on the ‘naughty list’). And if you’re willing to brush aside your cynicism and embrace your inner Christmas spirit, you’ll find more of the same here, the profits of which will partly support literary organisation 826 National. It does, of course, sound more or less like how you’d expect a Christmas album from She & Him to sound. Although less expansive than the pair’s well-received Volume Two LP, it is equally lush – Ward’s guitar work as subtle and refined as ever, Deschanel’s pretty, earthy voice well suited to the standards on offer. The Christmas Waltz opens proceedings in sparse, acoustic style, Ward takes the lead on Christmas Wish, while Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas hangs off a treble-heavy electric, introducing dreamy backing vocals into the fold....full text |
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