Christmas music with a Nashville accent

Mary Chapin Carpenter, 'Come Darkness, Come Light: Twelve Songs of Christmas'

This gentle, ruminative collection finds Chapin Carpenter delivering a non-traditional Christmas album. It's for listening, not for singing along, and it's as clean and still and fragile as some quiet December night amid birch-filled mountains. Aside from her own elegant and eloquent songs - two of which were written with co-producer John Jennings - Chapin Carpenter includes works from Robin and Linda Williams, Tommy Thompson and John Rutter.

- Peter Cooper