Goldblade ft Poly Styrene - City Of Christmas Ghosts

The Christmas single is one of pop's most maligned battlefields. A trail of schmaltzy, desperate or plain irritating nursery rhymes signposts the form.

Into this breach step Goldblade whose City Of Christmas Ghosts is a new festive classic - a melancholic yet euphoric take on the Christmas song. While they were at it we also decided to get the wonderful Poly Styrene on the track to duet the vocals with Goldblade frontman brother John Robb, it's the first time she has sung on a punk rock song since her days in X Ray Spex and the result is quite magical. Poly and John are very good friends with Goldblade supporting X Ray Spex at the recent triumphant sold out Roundhouse gig.

Poly and John star in a duet between a couple walking through the empty deserted streets on Christmas day reminiscing about lost friends in the melancholic mid winter night, looking for the true spirit of Christmas distracted by the seasonal neons before finding something erotic in the antiseptic festivities.

The single is a re-recording of a track off the recent Goldblade Mutiny album and has been re-titled City Of Christmas Ghosts. It's a Christmas song that's got a melancholic and dark heart, a duet raising a toast to lost friends and celebrating the true spirit of Christmas in a tale of lost love and nostalgia for lost love and friends. The outro of the song is quite special with Poly''s Hare Krishna chants mixing in with the anthemic chorus giving the song a euphoric spiritual edge.

The song is huge, warm, affecting and celebratory with the production turning it into a Spector punk anthem, advance orders already point to at least a top 40 hit making the song the one to rally round for the festive season.