PINS - "Kiss Me Quickly (It's Christmas)"

Christmas bells are a powerful weapon. They can be wielded to inspire mid-season gift-slacking guilt, to grate at the ears of weary mall shoppers, or to strike dread into young adults who just realized they're going to have to hang out with their parents for the better part of a week. They can also be used to dress up some seriously dreamy guitar pop.

Manchester's complement to the Dum Dum Girls, PINS slide their buzzy vintage aesthetic into a mellower holiday mold on "Kiss Me Quickly (It's Christmas)." The result's an easy and vaguely melancholy reprieve from the airless Mariah Carey runoff that's festering everywhere else in the air. We could hardly complain if more Christmases started to sound like this one.