Album Review: On Her New EP Lisa Dawn Miller Shares The Hopes Of The Season With MY FAVORITE TIME OF YEAR

Heigh Ho, dear lovely rainbow tribe, welcome back to Bobby’s CD sandbox where we offer our broken-down breakdowns of new music releases. So, strap in and get ready, as Bobby goes on the record ABOUT the record.

This week’s album entry in the BobbyFiles comes from Lisa Dawn Miller, who, most recently, played 54 Below with a tribute to her songwriter father, the legendary Ron Miller, composer of the holiday classic SOMEDAY AT CHRISTMAS (among many other famed songs). Lisa has now released a seven-song Christmas EP of original music of her own (plus her father's famous Yuletide jingle) entitled MY FAVORITE TIME OF YEAR. LDM is a woman who wears many hats. (TBH, my lambs, she is a woman who also MAKES many hats - see her online shop HERE) and she has been producing, directing, and publishing entertainment for many years now. But it is her inestimable (what? Bobby knows words!) singing and composing that is the subject today and that brings us right back to MY FAVORITE TIME OF YEAR. This is a lovely EP that gives everyone some new, heartfelt sentiments for the season. Written with producer/songwriter Mark Matson, these seven ballads all tell stories, either in past or present tense, about Christmas and its meaning. This collection, though, has no sleighbells jingling or reindeer flying with lit noses. This is not the dance about while you decorate the tree kind of album, but rather one that you sit with your fave bevie, hopefully by a fireplace, and listen, all the way through, to get that misty reason for the season feeling.
 

Opening with the title song MY FAVORITE TIME OF YEAR, Lisa’s clear, high, and beautiful voice is an earnest sound filled with happy emotions, giving this moderate-tempo holiday ballad some pop on the top. Filled with the hope of December and all our dreams coming true because of love, this one brims over with charm and fun, making it a really nice way to kick off the EP, and this is the one song in the collection that will give you the rhythmic sways. Second up is WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE CHRISTMAS EVE, a real love ballad for Christmas. This is very much that  “...my heart needs you and we’re apart at the holidays” feel. In the song, she hopes they will find each other, and her voice is filled with emotion going from a clear but soft wail to just the right touches of vocal fry. The phrasing here and the arrangement in the voice are superb, if a bit lush in the instruments, which dampens the simplicity somewhat. A CHRISTMAS TRUCE is based upon one of Little Bobby’s fave moments in history. This moving story ballad tells of the historic Christmas ceasefire of 1914, which happened organically and out of nowhere, between Axis & Allied WWI soldiers - moving and heartfelt and, then, soaring and gorgeous. The “slow” of this song feels less so, as it progresses. Finally, we will talk about SOMEDAY AT CHRISTMAS - written by daddy Ron, and given a more serious tone and tempo by daughter Lisa Dawn… A wish for peace is always welcome and the peace of the season is what Lisa wishes for everyone in a shining SOMEDAY, and in hearing this one in her dulcet voice, you want us all to have it. The lyrics to her father's song are inspiring and about hope, and there are "less reflective" renditions of the classic, but with this arrangement, Lisa Dawn would seem to be giving it a tinge of the times in which we are living, and the hopes for the world to recover from our most recent multiple traumas - this reflecting on the times renders this one a true prayer for peace.
 

Ultimately, we truly got a lot of feels from Lisa Dawn Miller’s MY FAVORITE TIME OF YEAR, and ‘tis the season for many to want beautiful ballads sung in winsome ways. Again, this is for those private moments when one needs to remind oneself of what time of year this is, and what it means, in meaningful ways, and for that we give Lisa Dawn Miller’s MY FAVORITE TIME OF YEAR

4 Out Of 5 Rainbows - Put this one in your collection/stream today.

Stream LDM’s MY FAVORITE TIME OF YEAR In The Amazon River: Click Here

You Can See And Hear Everything About Lisa Dawn Miller On Her Webbysite: HERE

Shop Some LDM Creations (Including that nifty fur hat she's wearing below) On Her Retail Site: HERE