The Handsome Family

Masters of melancholy Americana, the Handsome Family make music that draws on country, folk, and acoustic blues traditions while blending the ingredients in a way that gives them a truly unique personality, with the sometimes-witty, often heartfelt sadness of the lyrics matched by the artful elegance of the arrangements. Led by the husband-and-wife team of Brett Sparks and Rennie Sparks, the Handsome Family began as a rock group with an alt-country sensibility on 1995's Odessa, but by the time they released 1998's Through the Trees, they had adopted a more spare, rootsy sound that emphasized acoustic instruments and did away with most of their rock influences. Recording at their own pace in their living room, the duo's productivity slowed considerably following 2009's Honey Moon -- a relatively upbeat set focusing on songs about love --though 2016's Unseen and 2023's Hollow revealed the Sparks' talents were still with them.

Vocalist and composer Brett Sparks was born in Odessa, Texas, where he studied music and briefly worked around the oil rigs. By the mid-'90s, he had settled in Chicago with his wife Rennie, a fiction writer originally from Long Island. Brett persuaded Rennie to write lyrics for him, leading to the unusual and striking form of the Handsome Family's songs -- evocative scenes and brief tales (of both the daydream and ghost-story varieties) in lieu of the standard verse-chorus-verse structure. Initially working with drummer Mike Werner, the Handsome Family's debut album, Odessa, was released in January 1995 on the independent label Carrot Top. This first home recording (all of the Handsome Family's albums are recorded in their living room) had slight punk shadings in its electric guitars and rough-hewn sound. Odessa made few waves except for some radio stations banning the song "Arlene," about a woman who is bludgeoned to death. The follow-up came in May of the following year, and the Handsome Family hit the road in support of their new release, Milk and Scissors, first touring the U.S. with Wilco, then heading on to Europe for shows in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. With Milk and Scissors, the duo had traded in their previous rock edges for more traditional country and folk sounds. The resulting album won praise from the critics, was rated one of the Top Ten Albums of 1996 by alt-country/Americana magazine No Depression and was featured on John Peel's BBC radio show.

Despite their great success, this was not an easy period for the Handsome Family. Brett suffered an emotional breakdown during this time, which resulted in his hospitalization and diagnosis as manic-depressive. 1998's Through the Trees, the Handsome Family's third album, was written and recorded in the aftermath of these troubles. The raw, emotional quality of lyrics dealing with the darkness of everyday tragedy was delivered in Brett's deadpan baritone and often met by more traditional acoustic backing. With this recording, the Handsome Family came into their own and received widespread critical recognition as a result. Through the Trees was named one of the best local releases of 1998 by major Chicago papers, and also received praise from major music magazines, both online and in print. Through the Trees was featured on NPR and was even named the Best New Country Album of the Year by England's Uncut magazine, despite the album's idiosyncratic sound.

Through the Trees was the Handsome Family's breakthrough album and continued to find new fans over the next several years, allowing Brett and Rennie to quit their day jobs and focus on music full-time. Following the album's release, the duo began touring extensively, performing regularly in Europe and in the U.S. twice, once in tandem with the Mekons. On the wave of this success came the somewhat lighter and more natural sounds of 2000's In the Air, with guest appearances by Jeff Tweedy of Wilco and violinist Andrew Bird. The Handsome Family supported the release of their fourth album with a month-long European tour, followed by a string of shows along the American West Coast. A document of their live sound was preserved on their 2002 release Live at Schuba's Tavern, recorded at a December 2000 show in Chicago.

The duo released Singing Bones in 2003, followed by Last Days of Wonder in 2006 and the uncharacteristically upbeat Honey Moon in 2009. The 2013 release Wilderness found the band focusing on dour tales of life in the natural world. In 2014, they experienced an unexpected windfall when the song "Far Away from Any Road," from Singing Bones, was selected as the theme music for the acclaimed HBO drama series True Detective, giving the group a larger audience than they had ever experienced before. (The song was subsequently featured on an episode of The Simpsons, and Guns N' Roses used it as the overture for a 2014 concert tour, which is almost certainly the first thing the two groups have ever had in common.) In 2016, duo released their 11th studio album, Unseen, through their own Milk & Scissors label, another set of carefully rendered portraits of a fallen world. It wouldn't be until 2023 that the Handsome Family delivered another studio album. Hollow featured more songs about life's less-sunny side, with guest appearances from Alex McMahon on guitar, Jason Toth on percussion, and Dave "Guts" Gutierrez on mandolin. ~ Joslyn Layne & Mark Deming, Rovi