Handsome Family:
In the Air (Carrot Top)

One reason I've resisted this Chicago alt-country duo's charms for so long is they've sometimes settled for doomy faux-Appalachian imagery that strikes me as fraudulent coming from urban marrieds who frequent the same neighborhood haunts I do. Well, I resist no more. On this, their fourth and best long-player, wife and wordsmith Rennie Sparks pretty much mothballs the mountainside murders and mossy hollows of her most florid stanzas in favor of bad drunks and guys with bridge phobias, while husband, vocalist and tune architect Brett Sparks sings 'em and plays 'em like a Harry Smith devotee with a guilty Bauhaus jones. That's not to say the songs don't head off to darkest West Virginia every now and then. But if they keep writing lines like "I wanted to tell you all the ways that I loved you, but instead I got sick on the train," and "The hills are scattered with empty wheelchairs and hearing aids thrown to the ground," I'm more than willing to concede them a little time outside the city limits.

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