Alt-country darlings the Handsome Family have announced they will celebrate the release of their eighth album proper in 2009, as well as the duo's 20th year in marriage.
With love being in the air, the band's Brett and Rennie Sparks have appropriately titled their latest Honey Moon and according to the couple, fans should brace themselves for a change. No longer are the duo delving into dark ballads of murder, death and skull-harbouring swamp, but rather, well, love songs.
Along with a wedding anniversary, Rennie Sparks said that a pivotal point inspired the Handsome Family to shift gears. "We were driving over some mountains in New Zealand listening to the Platters singing 'Twilight Time,' and I could actually feel that gorgeous song healing little wounds all through my body," she said in a statement. "Life felt almost unbearably bittersweet after the song ended and I felt I had no choice except to sit down and try to write my way back into that mysterious palace where heavenly shades of night are falling."
And apparently those "shades of night" are falling on everything from country and bluegrass to R&B to pop to even a rock ballad or two. "Each song should be its own world, have its own style. So it's a record of 12 self-contained entities," Brett Sparks said, adding: "This record represents a concerted attempt to flex all of our songwriting muscles. Honey Moon is more musically and technically complex than anything I have ever done. I fell in love with the studio anew."
To hear some of this new direction first hand, several of the tracks are currently streaming on the Handsome Family's MySpace page and the album is due out April 14 courtesy of Carrot Top Records.
Here's the tracklisting:
1. "Linger, Let Me Linger"
2. "Little Sparrows"
3. "My Friend"
4. "When You Whispered"
5. "The Loneliness of Magnets"
6. "Junebugs"
7. "A Thousand Diamond Rings"
8. "Love Is Like"
9. "The Petrified Forest"
10. "Wild Wood"
11. "Darling, My Darling"
12. "The Winding Corn Maze"
The Handsome Family "My Beautiful Bride"
With love being in the air, the band's Brett and Rennie Sparks have appropriately titled their latest Honey Moon and according to the couple, fans should brace themselves for a change. No longer are the duo delving into dark ballads of murder, death and skull-harbouring swamp, but rather, well, love songs.
Along with a wedding anniversary, Rennie Sparks said that a pivotal point inspired the Handsome Family to shift gears. "We were driving over some mountains in New Zealand listening to the Platters singing 'Twilight Time,' and I could actually feel that gorgeous song healing little wounds all through my body," she said in a statement. "Life felt almost unbearably bittersweet after the song ended and I felt I had no choice except to sit down and try to write my way back into that mysterious palace where heavenly shades of night are falling."
And apparently those "shades of night" are falling on everything from country and bluegrass to R&B to pop to even a rock ballad or two. "Each song should be its own world, have its own style. So it's a record of 12 self-contained entities," Brett Sparks said, adding: "This record represents a concerted attempt to flex all of our songwriting muscles. Honey Moon is more musically and technically complex than anything I have ever done. I fell in love with the studio anew."
To hear some of this new direction first hand, several of the tracks are currently streaming on the Handsome Family's MySpace page and the album is due out April 14 courtesy of Carrot Top Records.
Here's the tracklisting:
1. "Linger, Let Me Linger"
2. "Little Sparrows"
3. "My Friend"
4. "When You Whispered"
5. "The Loneliness of Magnets"
6. "Junebugs"
7. "A Thousand Diamond Rings"
8. "Love Is Like"
9. "The Petrified Forest"
10. "Wild Wood"
11. "Darling, My Darling"
12. "The Winding Corn Maze"
The Handsome Family "My Beautiful Bride"
