…One night as I lay in bed waiting to drift into sleep, Rennie started mumbling. Talking in her sleep. She grew louder and louder, til she was screaming “Come into the circle Joseph. There’s no moon tonight.” This was frightening but at the same time compelling. In other words, it would make a great chorus. I got out of bed and wrote the words down. The next day, Rennie added verses—commands, ritual incantations, destructive procedures, investigations, and so on. This song wrote itself.
Welcome to the world of The Handsome Family. If you’ve never been here you’re in for a treat. If you’ve walked these lands before the above will delight you no end.
For their 30th year of making music, husband and wife team Rennie and Brett Sparks (she does the words, he does the music) have given us their 11th album of their patented western gothic Hollow. (That’s official studio albums. There’s a couple of fantastic outtakes and covers compilations in there, not to mention Live at Schuba’s Tavern – definitely in the running for one of the best live albums ever.)
How did the lockdown affect the Sparks family? To be honest, it doesn’t seem too (much more) miserable. What we have here is a collection of songs recognisable, yet somehow more pastoral than before. It’s all laid out in the entendre of the album title. Are you taken to the peace of the creek or staring into the abyss of human existence? Both is the correct answer.
John Peel once said he could listen to the late Cathal Coughlan sing the phonebook. Brett’s baritone has a similar effect on me. Here we get the closest we’ll probably see to that with Skunks; which seems to be some pest-control flyer Rennie found stapled to a telegraph pole set to music. These are not the only critters in evidence on the album. Nature scratching at the door is a theme across the album. None moreso than the old-timey hymnal Mothballs suggesting we cede our terrible coats to them more needing (deserving?) of them.
While recognisably a Handsome Family album, as ever there’s much musical exploration in here. From the epic Western twanging on To The Oaks, through the mellotron and piano trilling on the afore-mentioned Joseph. Two Black Shoes dabbles in sampling and looping for an effortlessly gorgeous shuffle-along.
I think with Good Night (It’s time for the rats to abandon the ship/Time for the billionaires to board their jets) they may now have enough ‘final’ songs for them to fill an entire set. (…Satan snores in his bunk/We’ll be out at the merch table after we’ve packed our junk.) It’s not a gimmick. More a nod to the troubadour, understanding that despite the truths they be telling it’s still a song and dance show
Did I mention this is beautiful? Because it is. Often hilarious. Because…it needs to be.