They stand so far apart Brett and his wife Rennie Sparks. There’s one of the latest mini Mac netbooks acting as a third member charged and loaded full of backing music to complement the pair’s minimal sound.
Before all this Ned Collette plays to a near empty room in support guise. He’s solo tonight and punches out some fuzzy, loud, distorted electric guitar progressions. His vocal drawl reverberating around the wide open spaces of the room, as Mr. and Mrs. Sparks sell their merchandise towards the right of the stage.
There are not many times when you could say you went to a gig and saw two bands with a total of three performers plugging out material. Tonight is the exception and the crowd enjoys the banter and life-on-the-road byplay between the banjo-wielding Rennie and baritone vocal/guitars of husband Brett.
As is the case with every Handsome Family show, Rennie introduces all songs with a back-story or a moment that fueled the particular songs they are about to deliver. As a general rule, this bores me to tears but again an exception is made, for the pair are genuinely interesting characters – as are the folks they cross paths with. Yet I think about the introductions Rennie gives and wonder if she re-hashes the stories at every show? But I digress.
Playing tracks predominantly from their most recent record Honey Moon (their eight record that coincided with the Sparks’ twentieth year of marriage), the pair are chipper and full of smiles, funny considering that the lyrics are all about death, despair and general devastation. I like their style.
Wild Wood takes an otherwise musically sedate show up a cog or two with heavier guitars introduced to accent the seriousness of the narrative as Brett delivers; “We can dress in skins, wrap our feet in bark/And you can growl at me or hit me with a rock/When you want to say, “I love you” in the dark/And I will bark like a dog in your arms/In the wild, the wild, wild, wild wood.” The primeval urges rearing their ugly heads early.
The Bottomless Hole from the album Singing Bones is a highlight with its melodic charm and soft country waltz beat, whilst their survival song After We Shot The Grizzly from their Last Days Of Wonder is dressed in its gothic Sunday best tonight. Odd considering it’s a Wednesday.
To the uninitiated, The Handsome Family would be a daunting, even quite pedestrian proposition with their slow-moving death-ditties and generally monotone vocal delivery, but for those in the know, its pure heaven, or is that hell? The Handsome Family have devoted fans the world over who hang on every disturbing demonic sermon they provide. Hypnotic. Devilish. Ritualistic. Yep, sounds like a cult to me.
