Pitchfork

You read that right: a Christmas song from the Knife, which isn't so odd when you consider the duo's maturation into icy techno phenoms is a fairly recent development. Prior to garnering wild acclaim for Silent Shout, the Dreijer siblings delivered two albums of serviceable electro-pop-- with dark touches, sure, but only hinting at the lost highways and shadowy forests to come on Shout. Now they alight on our snow-encrusted roofs with "Christmas Reindeer", a slight re-working of "Reindeer", the final track on their self-titled 2001 debut.

Re-working means doubling the original's panting rhythm with the obligatory jingle bell and trimming it back by nearly two minutes, wisely nixing a somewhat hokey slide guitar. And while the Knife's customized "Christmas Reindeer" takes a little while to soar, there's no denying the eerie power of Karin's voice-- largely unprocessed here-- when it ascends the upper registers for the chorus, then falls off in a dusting of snowflakes.

Before Rock Plaza Central were writing from the perspective of horses, the Knife considered the reindeer's burden-- and as with their best material, the cryptic closing declarations here should give you chills, no matter how many festive sweaters you're wearing: "We follow Mr. Santa to the end." The end? Mommy, Santa and his reindeer can't die...can they??

The Knife hit us with the next single from Silent Shout, "Marble House", on February 19.