"If you're tired of the same old cover versions of traditional Christmas music, you're not alone. Sugarland must have felt the same way, for this nifty little early Christmas present from country's premiere duo contains as many original holiday-themed compositions as it does reworkings of the expected chestnuts. The pair even puts their signature style on some of the cover versions. For example, it might be hard to picture anyone else singing "Nuttin' for Christmas" after hearing Jennifer Nettles' comically mischievous take on the song.

But it's the 5 original compositions that really separate GOLD AND GREEN from the rest of the holiday pack. "City of Silver Dreams" opens the disc with snowy sweet love letter to New York City, a song that surely deserves a place among the all-time great Christmas tunes. "Coming Home" revisits the theme of the band's first single "Baby Girl" (even going so far as to have the mother in the song ask 'How's my baby girl?'), and it's hard not to see art imitating life when one realizes it was just 5 short years ago that Nettles and Co. burst onto the scene with that slice of life-on-the-road. The title track evokes a sort of country-tinged Carpenters, although even Karen Carpenter never got so choice a line as "The butter light of candlesticks/Chases snowflakes off the bricks." Kristian Bush takes the mic for "Maybe Baby (New Year's Day)", a restless plea to see an old lover during the holidays. While probably the weakest of the original songs here, it's still a fine Steve Earle-style mid-tempo rocker.

And then we come to what is not only the album's best song, it could be the song-writing and performance high point of Sugarland's career to date. "Little Wood Guitar" is as perfect a composition as has come around in many years. While stylistically akin to "Coming Home," the song simply takes flight when Nettles reaches the chorus. And again, it's hard not to see some truth in the story of the rather unassuming Christmas present that had the power to change a person's life.

I guess the real revelation about GOLD AND GREEN is that it does not, for one moment, NOT feel like a Sugarland album. This is no studio-mandated collection of cover songs designed to front-load the retail racks in time for Christmas. It is what it is: A Sugarland Christmas album. Highly recommended." - A.Gammill(Quoted from Amazon.com) (via Amazon)