Southern Gospel style male quartet music has been around for a long time. Although many groups have brought great excitement to their live stage shows, only a few groups like the Kingdom Heirs and the Cathedrals have consistently produced top quality recordings. Production quality has always been of utmost importance to The Gaither Vocal Band, but their style mixes Southern Gospel with pop and country. Gold City typically stays firmly in the Southern Gospel camp. They've re-defined the genre to a great extent by popularizing inspirational tunes like "Midnight Cry" and "Show Me The Cross," and they revived an interest in Southern Gospel á capella singing a few years ago with their landmark album Acapella Gold.
With Home For The Holidays Gold City explores several traditional Chrismas songs and carols. Most of arrangements feature straight forward full harmony without an abundance of solos. "White Christmas" in particular has a rich vocal blend. The solos that are present are restrained with subtle embellishments. Traditional carols like "O Come All Ye Faithful" and "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear" are given the spotlight on four cuts, two of which are multi-tune medleys. The rolicking "Christmas Times A Comin'" adds a fun element to Home For The Holidays. The "least likely to be sung by a Southern Gospel quartet" award goes to "Carol Of The Bells." Bass singer Tim Riley has added a few rumbling low notes to this otherwise standard treatment.
Although Daywind is promoting it as such, Home For The Holidays is too short in length to be considered a full priced recording. The two carol medleys make the total song count 12, but there are only nine actual arrangements. Two of these are less than two minutes in length, and the total playing time of the whole recording is under 30 minutes. Perhaps there was pressure to rush a new recording to press, since Gold City just announced signing a new recording contract with Daywind, leaving their home of over a decade at Riversong. At any rate, Home For The Holidays is very good quality, but you may want to try to find it at an after Christmas sale if length is an issue.