Experimental guitar virtuoso Steve Marion doesn’t half-ass his first holiday foray–instead, he reinvents the Yuletide in his own image with the help of Joe Russo, Dave Dreiwitz, Marco Benevento and Dan Iead. The Christmas Album opens with a run of gently oceanic covers: He unfurls Hawaiian slide guitar on “Silent Night” and “Away in a Manger,” reinvents “Silver Bells” into a beach-side jazz daydream, injects some Latin flavor into “White Christmas” and steams up “Little Drummer Boy” with a psych-funk groove. And the LP could have continued at that tasteful pace and wound up as an essential Christmas listen. But then comes the climactic “Frosty the Snowman,” a 14-minute freak-out fantasia of dissonant guitars, droning bass and tumbling drums. It’s more “Tomorrow Never Knows” than Perry Como, more eggnog acid trip than front-yard, snow-angel session. Maybe next year, we’ll hear Delicate Steve’s prog-rock version of “Jingle Bells.”