THE HANDSOME FAMILY

St David’s Hall, Cardiff

Tue 26 May

The Handsome Family have probably the best onstage banter of pretty much any band of the modern age. Probably influenced by audio and video from the Grand Ol’ Opry era of country music (Johnny Cash and June Carter also excelled at this), it equally resembles a gothically-minded satire of variety-hour/end-of-the-pier stage shows from a time when most TVs were black and white. If Brett Sparks had piped up, “I’ve brought the wife with me tonight – it saves kissing her goodnight,” it would not have been greatly out of character.

Those unfamiliar with this Albuquerque-based dark country-folk band – a quartet for live purposes – should understand that Brett and his wife, Rennie Sparks, formed in 1993 and thus have had 16 years to hone their bon mots and acidic asides. If you start from when they were wed, they’ve had 20 years – which brings us to their new album, the solidly lovely ‘Honey Moon’. A collection of romantic (in twisted fashion) songs to celebrate their two decades spliced, it provides a reason to tour once more, this being their first Cardiff date for a few years. The set is anything but a glassy-eyed promo slog, though.

Songs from ‘Honey Moon’ are presented sparingly. ‘The Loneliness Of Magnets’ – about “an enormous hole” – has its chorus sung by Brett in a baritone deep enough for someone behind me to start giggling, either due to a suddenly ticklish abdomen or because they thought it was a moment of pure comedy. . ‘Wild Wood’ canters at a rockabilly-esque pace as it envisages people losing their mind on escaping to the country. Much of the set falls back on the proverbial fan favourites, and this is a long way from a bad thing. An unsurprising highlight of the 70 minutes or so comes with ‘Weightless Again’: perhaps the group’s best known song (Cerys Matthews covered it on her first album), has its twin theme of sex and suicide given bonus creepy weight by Rennie’s playing of a melodica.

Words: Noel Gardner