The group's eighth CD features holiday music, some secular and some religious. Its title track, It Came Upon the Midnight Clear, is an anomaly – a Christmas carol that focuses not on the nativity, but on the song of the angels: Peace on the earth, goodwill to men. Written in 1849 during a time of upheaval, in the third verse of the carol Edmund Hamilton Sears describes being beneath life’s crushing load. But he returns in the fourth verse with a message of hope, envisioning a time when peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendors fling. We hope that you experience a sense of peace and optimism as you listen to these fresh, contemporary takes on familiar favorites.