Through the Trees is the third album from husband and wife Brett and Rennie Sparks – creative masterminds of alt country. Rennie lends his powerful and stirring vocals to this eerie haunted slice of folkloric Americana.
This is not the America of strip malls and office parks exactly, The Handsome Family turns their focus to the the mysteries that lie beyond the modern world, behind leaning birch trees and sudden snow storms. All of the album is pretty great, but I am just wild about “Weightless Again” and “Last Night I Went Out Walking”.
The lyrics by Rennie read like poetry filled with snake bites, suicides, well accidents, and suffering ghosts. Not only a gifted lyricist, Sparks also wrote the mesmerizing short stories Fire and Suburban Girl read by her on This American Life. Her paintings are available for sale on their site.
But what do you think?