The artists that cut or are cutting albums for Threadhead Records came together to record A Very Threadhead Holiday, a charming, often irreverent Christmas album. The album succeeds in being seasonal (if not always holly and jolly), and it represents the musical personalities of those involved. Craig Klein’s “Christmas on My Mind” is a good-natured slice of classic New Orleans R&B, and the Kinky Tuscaderos’ Mary Lasseigne’s “All Jacked Up for the Holidays” is modern rock without being too hip to celebrate. Glen David Andrews leaps out of the speakers for “Santa Got High for Christmas,” and while it works, he could benefit from noticing how Susan Cowsill makes “The World at Christmas Time” hold up for over five minutes with a series of hooks dotted throughout the song. In Alex McMurray’s world, a drunken St. Nick passes out at the kitchen table after ruining Christmas in “Santa Let Me Call You a Cab.”

The album’s better balanced than that run-through might suggest. For every “Drunk This Christmas”— producer Paul Sanchez’ contribution—there’s John Boutté’s hushed and beautiful “Holding You This Christmas” and Debbie Davis’ playful “Hanging Up My Stockings.” Her cover of the Squirrel Nut Zippers’ Christmas song and husband Matt Perrine’s sousaphone version of “Carol of the Bells” are the only songs that weren’t written for the album, but they add a light-hearted, seasonal quality to the proceedings.