For major recording artists, Christmas albums are practically a requisite. It's like that old saw about opinions and a**holes - everyone's got one, even Bob Dylan, Annie Lennox and Air Supply. Understandably, the DIY music world steers clear of such nakedly commercial wintertime cash-ins, but Christmas, nonetheless, stands as a daring (and Google-proof) choice of name for the Olympia quartet of Emily Beanblossom (vocals), Dave Halegua (bass), Jake Jones (drums) and Pat Scott-Walsh (guitar).

Christmas' turbulent garage sound is a far cry from the mawkish schmaltz of holiday standards, though the band's sound is characterized by a juvenile kind of rambunctious joy, with a mongrel's appetite for assimilating worldly influences. (The Pakistan: Instrumental Folk & Pop Sounds compilation on Seattle's Sublime Frequencies imprint is one of Christmas' major touchstones.)

"Initially we wanted to sound like a punk Bollywood movie soundtrack," says Scott-Walsh, who also gleans inspiration from Japanese psych-rock. 

The band's globally aware mindset may stem from their international inception. Beanblossom and Scott-Walsh met while studying abroad in Poland, and it was there that they decided to start a band.

"I saw Pat come to class in really short shorts and it was all over after that.  I just wanted those legs to be in my life," Beanblossom explains.

Her limb-lust seriously paid off: Christmas is a whirlwind of a band, given to apoplectic fits, art-punk dissonance and New Wave pop majesty. The collision of Jones and Halegua's swift rhythms with Scott-Walsh's tubular surf-guitar licks and Beanblossom's stammering, Nelly Furtado-inspired vocals is infectious.

Their rollicking singles "Whips of Love," "Namiot," and "Dog Problems" are out now on Highfives and Handshakes, K Records and Bandcamp, respectively (full disclosure: the former put out an EP by my band, U.S.F., last month). All three appear on the self-titled vinyl full-length that H+H will be co-releasing with CMRTYZ on March 15 -one day before South by Southwest (SXSW), where Christmas will perform four days in a row.

You can catch Christmas locally in late April, when the band plays with Oakland's Bare Wires at Northern on the 29th. Beyond that, Christmas plans merely to "hustle the f*** out of" their LPs, indulge in their usual post-show routine ("load the car, drink, put out, profit") and decompress while Jones tours for five weeks with Malaikat dan Singa.

In the meantime, we'll have to wait and see if the band's rock-solid full-length turns enough heads to make the words "Christmas" and "album" synonymous with tastiness instead of tackiness.