"Hey, nobody dies in this one," grins a gleeful Rennie Sparks prior to an eerily atmospheric version of recent album highlight "24 Hour Store." "But that's because they're already dead!" Phew, that's a relief.
Because, while we're always complaining about the grim inevitability of everything from the price of petrol to the omnipresence of Carol Vorderman on daytime TV, sometimes it's reassuring to know some things NEVER change. In the case of New Mexico's dark country heroes THE HANDSOME FAMILY the status quo is very much preserved: they're still terminally fatalistic and utterly fantastic. Thank...well, if not God, then maybe the other geezer.
Especially as the last time your reviewer caught them prior to Xmas they seemed to be slugging it out and going through the motions. It seemed strange at the time, with a cool new album in "Singing Bones" to promote, yet Rennie and husband Brett instead performed a poorly paced 'greatest hits' set, ignored much of the album and left us all rather underwhelmed.
That misfire is ancient history tonight, though, as Brett, Rennie and Brett's brother Darryl (adding drum kit muscle, sweet harmonies and occasional bass) wheel out a lengthy set poking into all the crevices of their career thus far. They are deliciously engaging in this small, funky venue, with Rennie's legendary 'tween song patter tonight taking in spiders, ants, water divining, the "soothing" qualities of the band's CD covers and the new tour t-shirt which features a fetching picture of an octopus with only seven tentacles. Go figure.
And, as soon as they slide into the deathly slow shimmer of "A Beautiful Thing" it's obvious it's gonna be a good one. Caressing the lyric of inebriated devotion and screwing up his eyes behind his Elvis Costello specs, burly Brett sings "I wanted to tell you how much I loved you, but instead I got sick on the train." Aah, romance, kids. This is how it's done.
From there on, they're unstoppable. Darryl's extra presence spurs the Sparks' clan into divine violence as they serve up the classic murder ballads "Arlene" and "Up Falling Rock Hill", while Rennie's surreal force of nature lyrics ensure the likes of "Bottomless Hole" and "Forgotten Lake" swirl around us like a particularly malevolent fog.
|
Rennie herself mostly plonks her stick bass. The autoharp has been forsaken this time round, while she calls on her melodica on only a couple of occasions (notably for the childlike, hymnal "No-one Fell Asleep Alone"). A new development is her accomplished banjo playing, however. She straps it on for her Roald Dahl-style death-in-the-basement tune "Down In The Ground" and a reworked version of the classic "Weightless Again", which they pull of beautifully.
They're heading into the home strait when Brett busts a string during "A Dark Eye." Lack of roadies and spare guitars forces them to stop while Brett restrings. In a lesser band's hands, this would be fatal, but despite an interlude of five minutes or so, the spell isn't broken and they reconvene for the kooked waltz of "The Sad Milkman" and the still joyous "Cathedrals": a deceptively jaunty song that confronts abject mortality (sample lyric: "All of us we're swept away like breadcrumbs") and still gets you singing along like the devil may care. The twisted, but brilliant buggers.
In typical Connolly's fashion, the crowd don't want to let them go, but finally they have to leave us with the mordant "Drunk By Noon" (terminal cancer soundtracked with a whistling solo, anyone?) and Brett's solo croon through Bill Monroe's child death ode "I Hear A Sweet Voice Calling," curiously the same way the Handsomes called it a night on their first visit to this venue some years back.
"We lived in Chicago for years. That's why all our songs go on about snow and drinking, so you'll have to excuse us" says Rennie shyly prior to a heartbreaking "So Much Wine." There's really no need: The Handsome Family are still out in the weird old midwest and still sending us the most unearthly postcards from the edge. In this insane world, it's a comforting thought.
|
