Album Review: The Handsome Family - Wilderness

It's rare these days that a band harbouring fervent fans the likes of Jeff Tweedy, Jarvis Cocker and Nick Cave could continue to fly under the radar. Twenty years and nine albums in, however, and New Mexico's The Handsome Family remain a niche concept, augmenting their baroque take on Appalachian folk with country twangs, psych tangents and strange, dark-as-pitch subject matter. Wilderness does little to open the husband and wife duo up to new audiences, nor to stretch their wings, instead content to mine this (admittedly rich) vein of music for all it's worth.

The subject matter is nothing if not bewitching, and sometimes brilliant – Woodpecker tells the tale of Mary Sweeney, the kook who insists on smashing every glass surface in town; Frogs a disturbing call to the depths of the dirt and the banal shift of history; Glow Worm is a doomed voyage through the centre of the earth. Every song is named after an animal of the American wild, and these animals mirror these tall, dark tales. The juxtapositions of the vocals – Brett Sparks' baritone overpowering the pixyish lilt of wife Rennie – add to the quirk, yet it's the subtleties that combine with these confronting complexities that prove to be more endearing. Brett Sparks has a way with melody that creeps on you – Eels as a composition seems commonplace, but will echo long after the song has closed up shop. His deep timbre holds sway, undulating between gothic preacher to weary porch dweller with nary a breath being taken.

Wilderness is an album that demands devoted listening; to disappear down the rabbit hole with these warped vignettes.