For days now, the lines "after we shot the grizzly" and "I can still see you there in your grass-stained underwear" have been going round in my head. The former comes from the song of the same name and is set to a particularly jaunty tune which continues along its merry way cataloguing a series of disasters befalling a stranded group of men - airship crashes, madness, disease - culminating in setting to sea on a boat made of skin and bone. And no, things don't get any better, as you might expect. The latter comes from Flapping Your Broken Wings, a tale of the violation of a golf course and possibly more. In their own way, both songs are beautiful and utterly original. No one in their right minds would expect anything ordinary from The Handsome Family, of course, but, as ever, Brett and Rennie Sparks consistently transform the mundane into the extraordinary, and, in Somewhere Else To Be, the chance encounter into the life-changing event, if only we had the gumption to realise it was a life-changing event, and the nerve to grasp the opportunity. So there's plenty to identify with, even though Rennie, who writes the songs, is clearly blessed with a particularly rich imagination. Hunter Green is an original but could easily be a folk song in its disturbing imagery of a lover's transformation.
She recently gave an interview about the panic attack she suffered when she lost Brett in an airport and there are two songs which presumably draw on that experience. We've all been in similar situations, but who else would conclude that fact that automatic taps fail to see one's hands is a sign that death is imminent? Or, as she puts it, "your last journey has begun." It's a wonderful, haunting album. Watch out for those automatic taps and stray dogs gathering in your yard.
