This next review is one of my favourite bands, but not one of my favourite albums.
Disc 1416 is…. Smothered and Covered
Artist: The Handsome Family
Year of Release: 2002
What’s up with the Cover? Inside a house merriment ensues, but outside? We have a tale of two harpists in the rain. One harpist appears dead, the other, nervous. Given this is a Handsome Family album it is safe to assume the second harpist murdered the first. Why? We may never know but everyone knows you don’t muscle in on a fellow harpist’s favourite corner and put down your hat. Harpists take that shit seriously.
How I Came To Know It: A while back I had a few Handsome Family albums and was looking for more, when I found their website was offering a deal to buy their entire collection of 12 CDs at a discount. I did it and made a deal to sell the three I had, to both replace them anew, and get seven more that I wanted. Two more albums weren’t on my list but were basically free when you tallied all the transactions up. “Smothered and Covered” was one of those.
How It Stacks Up: I have twelve Handsome Family albums. If you already knew that congratulations – you do well on math and logic problems. Maybe consider taking the LSAT. Anyway, “Smothered and Covered” is OK, but it isn’t one of my favourites. I’ll put it in at #12. Hey – someone has to be last.
Ratings: 2 stars but almost 3
The byline under “Smothered and Covered” is “a personal collection of rarities including odd covers, bathroom demos, and orphaned songs.” With such a wide assortment of castaways you might expect the overall quality to be uneven, and you’d be right.
If you haven’t read my previous reviews, the Handsome Family is a husband and wife team Brett and Rennie Sparks, who sing a mix of folk, alternative country that tell stories featuring a lot of weirdness and murder. The horror writer in me loves them, and so does the music lover. I did not, however, love “Smothered and Covered”.
The ingredients are all there, and the album gets off to a promising start with the previously unreleased “There’s a City” which is Handsome Family engaged on full creep. Tinkling xylophone as Brett sings about a city where “people spin in dizzy circles” and where the houses are “made of smoke”. Great stuff right out of a Lovecraft novel or Twilight Zone episode.
This one is an original, and the album basically has four sub-categories of songs: demos of previously released songs, different versions of previously released material, covers, and weird ass musical experiments.
I wasn’t enamoured of the demos, which sounded like just that and in each case I preferred the final polished version. They weren’t terrible, it just didn’t add a lot if you own all the other albums. Maybe as a Handsome Family fan (and I am the biggest I know) I am supposed to swoon at the notion of multiple versions of songs; swoon I did not.
The covers are solid, but two stood out. Their version of the Kris Kristofferson classic “Sunday Morning Coming Down” has a haunting quality neither Kris nor Johnny Cash evoked. This being the Handsome Family, I imagined the narrator wasn’t just waking up after a bender, but from one where he blacked out and upon regaining consciousness finds a dead hooker in the bathtub. It gave the line “I fumbled through the closet for my clothes and cleanest dirty shirt” all new dread. It probably stinks, but at least it ain’t covered in blood.
Also good is their cover of the traditional murder ballad, “Knoxville Girl” featuring yet another loser murdering a woman who wouldn’t marry him. In trying to find earlier versions, I happened upon this 1953 clip by the Wilburn Brothers where they inexplicably think it would be fun to “send this one out to all the folks viewing in Knoxville, Tennessee.” Not exactly the kind of dedication that’s going to earn you a key to the city.
They also do a superb cover of Bill Munroe’s “I Hear a Sweet Voice Calling” which, refreshingly, has no murder but still involves an untimely death, this being the Handsome Family and all.
The real crime of the record (and what holds it south of 3 stars) are the half-dozen experimental tunes, with titles like “Prepared Piano #1” and “Cello #2” they are basically cacophonous explorations of what kinds of sounds you can make on the titular instruments. It may make you ask “why?” but it won’t make it enjoyable. These tracks are all super-short (under 90 seconds each) but they are not short enough. Again, I fear for the safety of my Handsome Family Fan Club credentials saying this. I’m probably supposed to revel in the weirdness. Ordinarily I would, but I want my weirdness to also be wrapped up in something recognizable as a song.
Near the end the Sparks recapture the magic, with a depressing Christmas song wrapped up in destitution and hunger with “Stupid Bells” which isn’t listed below as one of the best tracks but is a lot of fun if, like me, you enjoy creepy holiday tunes.
Overall this record suffers the fate of a lot of these kind of “castaways” records, being uneven and overlong (18 tracks) but there are some solid gains here – certainly enough to earn its place back on the CD shelves.
Best tracks: There’s a City, Sunday Morning Coming Down, I Hear a Sweet Voice Calling, Knoxville Girl
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