Dear Christmas (Sony Nashville, 2022)

It's impossible to cover every musical side of the holiday season on a full-length album, let alone do it so with a short EP. However, with her brief, four-song project, Rachel Wammack covers much ground on such a limited project. She sings wonderfully well throughout, even if much of the material isn't exactly country.

"There's A New Kid in Town," which features a vocal assist from Blessing Offor, is the release's most country instrumented track, as it features plenty of acoustically stringed sounds. However, Offor's contribution makes its duet vocals take on a distinctly soulful vibe. The opener, "Santa Claus Is Back in Town," lets Wammack turn on the blues power, which she most confidently does. "This Christmas," that Donny Hathaway favorite, is smooth soul, as it should be. Lastly, Wammack goes to church on "O Holy Night," sung simply with just her lovely voice over an acoustic piano. It's simply beautiful.

It's difficult enough to narrow an album down to 10 songs or so. Picking just four, though, that's gotta be even harder. Nevertheless, Rachel Wammack proves the idiom that the best things come in small packages with this effort.