Music News: Rick and Aila Massie Celebrate Christmas With A Re-imagining of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”

Rick Massie will release his latest single, “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” on Friday, December 11, 2020. The track is a re-imagining of the original Christmas Classic, and is his first track featuring vocals from his 11-year-old daughter, Aila Massie.

It can be purchased and streamed via Bandcamp here.

The song is the third release in his annual Christmas metal cover series. “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” takes the original song and adds in multiple layers of guitar, vocals and orchestration to create a wall of sound that gives a new life to the song. The song also features some new music from Rick Massie in between each of the verses in order to add more excitement and variety to the simple song structure.

In his own words:

I wanted to have fun with this one. Firstly, I really wanted to work with my daughter to create a song together, since we spend so much time listening to so much music together. I thought this would be a great way to spend some time preparing for the holidays, and giving back to those who are having a tough time this year, by sending out joy and hope through a song they already know and love.

I took some liberties with this cover – it’s not a strict cover in the usual sense. It does take most of the song and play it back in a style that suits my usual sound, but I also decided to add in new riffs and segments in between each verse, to add some excitement and new sounds to the classic song. This includes an emotional guitar solo, a wall-of-sound guitar and vocal lead section, and a verse that was recorded in a minor key, with a new vocal melody. All-in-all, it’s a take on the classic song that will surprise people in a few ways, and will hopefully make them smile as well.

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