Critic's Choice

Related Content

• Le Divorce premieres "Under the Boxcars" video this Saturday at hi-dive with Varlet and Rowboat
  March 6, 2012
• Musketeer Gripweed
  November 11, 2010
• Plant Medicine Expo's Seth Ginsberg on the mainstreaming of medical marijuana
  September 24, 2010
• Denver Health breaks ground on a new adolescent psych unit
  June 18, 2010
• Powder to the People
  March 25, 2010

More About

• Andrew Wyeth
• Pharmaceuticals Sector
• Health and Human Services Sector
• Biotechnology Sector
• Visual Arts

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Music Newsletter: Keep your thumb on the local music scene with music features, additional online music listings and show picks. We'll also send special ticket offers and music promotions available only to our Music Newsletter subscribers.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

The Handsome Family, Saturday, September 20, at the Lion's Lair, makes roots music that feels like the sonic equivalent to an Andrew Wyeth painting. There are cracks in the walls, despair on the faces that populate the Chicago duo's simple, rural tableaus. Redemption lies just out of reach, and sadness often prevails, underscored by the plaintive wails of guitars and violins. The Handsome Family's approach to modern country has little to do with the twanging tendencies or revivalism of much of the alt-country crowd, though its music is certainly steeped in the grim tradition of the murder ballad and the high-lonesome narrative. Songwriter Brett Sparks has found a suitably melancholic lyricist in his wife, fiction writer Rennie. The result is a kind of gothic Americana -- rugged, sparse, minimalist and devastating. The band's new release, Twilight, captures that spirit beautifully. A live setting, however, is the best place in which to meet this compelling Family.