Style Weekly (www.styleweekly.com) has issued the following report from Carrie Nieman:

What could folk-pop singer-songwriter SUSAN GREENBAUM and trash-talking metal musician Randall Blythe have in common? Christmas.

The Jewish singer and lead screamer of LAMB OF GOD are planning a duet on Greenbaum’s Christmas album. The two met while Greenbaum was recording the album at Sound of Music Studios at Third and Broad streets. She was working on her project downstairs and Blythe was doing preproduction work on the upcoming Lamb Of God album upstairs.

“I have a very nice baritone voice, so I said I wanted to sing a duet with her,” says Blythe, who calls the project “just weird enough for me.”

For Greenbaum, the collaboration will be one of many brushes with fame she’s had of late. Most recently she and her band appeared on American Idol singing with Elliott Yamin at the James Center. Prior to that, the diminutive Harvard grad won a competition to open for Jewel in 2003.

“I was hoping to be the fame sometime rather than the brushee — maybe someday that will happen,” Greenbaum says.

For Blythe and guitarist Mark Morton, who will also play on the track, the collaboration is a hoot. “It’s going to be awesomely retarded, especially since I f—ing hate Christmas and she’s Jewish!” Blythe wrote on his MySpace Web page.

Greenbaum says her fans always request a Christmas album whenever she sings holiday songs. “Barry Manilow, Barbara Streisand, Neil Diamond — all the Jews are doing it, I figured I’d just be the next Jew to make a Christmas CD,” Greenbaum says.

Both Greenbaum and Blythe seemed to have been impressed by the other. Blythe calls Greenbaum a “very sweet person,” and she says she was surprised by how good Blythe’s singing voice is, because it’s not so much singing as screaming that he does on Lamb of God albums.

The three haven’t decided on the song yet. Greenbaum says it will be something traditional, but “stylistically I don’t know what it will be.”

Greenbaum says the album is already all over the map stylistically, with rock, a cappella and jazz. The album will also feature Richmond Symphony pianist Russell Wilson playing jazz piano and even some almost classically composed pieces featuring symphony conductor Mark Russell Smith singing and playing cello. Fourteen tracks, some traditional and some original, have been recorded for the album, due out in October.

As for the exposure Greenbaum might get from her Lamb of God connection, she says, “It opens up a whole new demographic for both them and me, although it’s a little less likely that my fan base will cross over, but I guess fans of mine that have kids will be stoked.”

Blythe says he doesn’t know or care what his fans will think. “It’s a fun thing as a musician,” he says.