Albuquerque based husband and wife duo Brett and Rennie Sparks are essentially The Handsome Family. They released their eleventh album `Hollow` last September and arrive in Birmingham on the home stretch of a sixteen date trek around Ireland and the UK. It’s been seven years since I last caught the band and tonight an expectant sold out crowd anticipate their arrival.
A bonus for me was that Frontier Ruckus, a folk rock trio from the Great Lake State of Michigan have been selected to open each show. I was fortunate to review their latest release `On The Northline`, the band’s sixth album on its release in February. It’s been eleven year since FR played at this venue and open proceedings with the wistful `Mona and Emmy` before sharing `Everywhere But Beside You` from the latest release which is a love song written while day dreaming about the perfect partner. Singer Matthew worries that their song references may be a little too esoteric as they relate a lot to their hometown state before sharing an older number `Silverfishes`.
Zach leads us through an instrumental that reminded me of `Blue Moon` while using a musical saw that gives the number the texture of a Theremin. The show closes out with the reflective title track of the last album `On The Northline` and an older melancholic reflective musing `The Latter Days`. This was an all too brief outing for this gifted trio and I only hope that Matthew, David and Zach will deem to grace these shores in much less time than the eleven years since they last did.
As for the main event, Brett and Rennie are joined by drummer Jason Toth and multi-instrumentalist Alex MacMahon and open with the brooding `Joseph` from the latest release, a track that came from Rennie`s night screams and has an almost spiritual texture with the line “Come into the circle Joseph”.
We enjoy a variety of numbers this evening from the pairs eclectic back catalogue with songs such as `The Bottomless Hole` which for me had a Springsteen `The River` narrative vibe, `So Much Wine` referenced as a Christmas song, the jazzy `The Loneliness Of Magnets which Rennie`s mom thought was Maggots and the reflective `My Sister’s Tiny Hands`.
Deeper numbers such as `Frogs` and `Octopus` are dusted down along with more mesmerising cuts such as `Far From Any Road` and the delightful `The King Of Everything`. A couple of my favourite numbers ring out with `All The Time In Airports` and the compelling `Weightless Again`. The layout of the venue doesn’t really suit the superficial farce of an encore but the majority of the quartet tries to hide behind the speakers while Brett just sits down on a stool and pretends not to be there.
The encore includes what I think was the duo’s first song they wrote together, the heartbreaking `Arlene` and fittingly `Good Night` from their latest opus. I have to admit that I found the ninety minutes shared pretty overwhelming and came away a little confounded and perplexed but it was one of those shows that you have to kind of imbibe, absorb and reflect back on in the cold light of day. I can now appreciate the depth and the complexity of the numbers lyrical and musical content which maybe didn’t gel with me at the time.
The Handsome Family are an outfit that will not only deeply touch your emotional receptors but will leave you in an overpowering contemplative state and what more can you ask of a band. There are just another six dates remaining of this tour so if you want to have your psyche blown, time is running out.
