All this holiday cheer and these festive pleasantries have inspired some steely thunder for fans of metal music.
Forget ringing in the new year, local band Phos wants to pound it in with apocalyptic beats and raging melodies, just to put the city's chi back into balance.
Phos lays down some groove beats that people can dance to, but they also like to challenge any escapist listening. They are not a pop band just because there's pop in their amps.
"A big part of it for us is the doom atmosphere," said band member Christos Vardacostas. "There is a mystique about not fully understanding something, especially something dark. We like to go to the dark places."
Their darkness is not a place of despair. Their material is not hopeless and it is not intent on crushing happiness.
Their philosophy is much like that of golden age horror films, where the fright is there to tickle those emotions we don't get to unwrap very often. It is to jolt the senses, bring attention to shadows so we might better understand what mental objects are there in the dark.
Other bands that do this include Pink Floyd, Metallica, Black Sabbath and Faith No More.
They are even named for this range of musical emotions. Phos is a Greek word that means to emit light, and metaphorically it especially means divine light or the light of understanding. They released their first song package - a six-song EP called Matriarch - earlier in 2015 and this upcoming concert will be their way of saying goodbye to that material in favour of new stuff to come.
"I'm always writing. How much of it gets used eventually, I never know. It's a really passive technique we use," Vardacostas said. "A couple of us keep revisiting the new material we've built up, we keep trying things out, developing it. It's easy to write a song, but is the song good? And once you write it, in my case I only really think of it in terms of Phos using it so then we have to add the layers. I like something that starts off in a melodic, deep place that rises to something triumphant or horrific, something powerful, and then drops back down, like climbing a mountain then going to go back down the other side."
The band is made up of Vardacostas on drums and vocals, guitar/vocalist Ajit Singh, guitarist Neil Tajcner and bassist Teresa DeReis. Following this show, the band will take a deliberate hiatus to build up new songs and look after family connections for awhile.
"We're looking forward to playing at Art Space," said DeReis.
"Our last show was there, and the sound and the vibe were awesome. Can't wait to do it again."
Joining them will be special guest Karl Wyssen, despite him being of a different musical style.
"People should get to know him," said Vardacostas. "He hosts a radio show and he's a talented blues-rock guy, too. It livens up the crowd for us. He's done that for us before. It really works."
This Art Space concert is sponsored by CFUR, the campus radio station at UNBC.
Admission is $5 (only for those 19-plus) and showtime is 8 p.m. on Jan. 7.
