Camera Obscura Releasing Jim Reeves Cover for Christmas

With the holidays fast approaching, it's inevitable that bands will be rolling out a Christmas carol or two. Count Scottish indie-poppers Camera Obscura in this year, but don't think they will be singing about Rudolph or Santa or anything happy and festive. Instead, they'll release a cover version of Jim Reeves' 'The Blizzard,' where they take the downtrodden, Johnny Cash-style country ballad and twist it into something more up-tempo.

"Every year, we sort of think, 'Oh I wish we'd done a Christmas song,'" pianist Carey Lander tells Spinner. "But this year, we got around to doing it. We don't really like Christmas songs very much, so we did a cover of 'The Blizzard,' which is very tongue-in-cheek. It's about dying in a blizzard."

While the original is quite morose sounding, Camera Obscura's version is a mid-tempo, twangy take that rests on Traceyanne Campbell's shifting vocals. She starts off sounding very upbeat and promising, but over the duration of the four minutes becomes joyous, forlorn and finally winds up in a whispery, broken state -- just like Reeves would've wanted.

"It's not so much that we hate everything about Christmas," Lander says. "We just didn't want to do something religious. And all the pop classics have all been covered and people try to write their own. Some are okay. [The Blizzard] is great to dance to."

Camera Obscura is prepping for another quick North American tour, starting Nov. 18 at Tipitina's in New Orleans. 'The Blizzard' is out Nov. 17 via iTunes.