Celebrate the holidays with Philly’s Dr. Dog and the Oh My Christmas Tree EP

With their fall tour supporting The Lumineers a wrap, Dr. Dog are back home in Philly for the holidays before embarking on a big 2014 tour in support of this year’s B-Room. Perhaps they’re feeling a bit celebratory about it, since the band is releasing a digital holiday EP tomorrow via their label, Anti- Records. Called Oh My Christmas Tree, it’s a collection of lo-fi Christmas originals songwriter Scott McMicken originally intended for family and friends, but decided to bring to a broader audience. It’s streaming today via Slate, and McMicken writes that while the songs are poppy and playful on the surface, as is the case with Dr. Dog’s best songs, there’s a flipside:

Christmas music can be so playful and fantastical but it can also be very melancholy and foreboding. To me thats the best. The spirit can guide you to balance and the spirit can be found anywhere you choose to look. In the cartoons and in the cold blood. In the wild imagination and in the strictest tradition. These four songs will ultimately live as that reminder for me and hopefully they serve you in some way too.

Listen to Oh My Christmas Tree here. Dr. Dog headlines the Electric Factory on January 31st and February 1st; tickets and information can be found at the XPN Concert Calendar.