It has been too long, really, we ought to be annoyed. The album ‘Hollow‘ is the first release by The Handsome Family since 2016’s ‘Unseen‘, and that’s a long time to not have any new glimpses into the parallel world of strange gothic Americana that Brett and Rennie Sparks inhabit. Yet within seconds of the start of ‘Joseph‘ all is forgiving, this is The Handsome Family at their unsettling greatness – it’s hard to say exactly what is going on here but it could involve Dark Gods on forgotten eldritch hilltops. Or…maybe not.
How does such a song com to be? Well, Brett explains that in this case very easily: “It was a bleak winter during the middle of the pandemic. One night around 4 a.m. Rennie started screaming in her sleep. She screamed, ‘Come into the circle Joseph! There’s no moon tonight.’ Scary as it was, I thought, man, that’s a good chorus!” The rest is musical magic, dark magic no doubt, but magic nonetheless.
‘Hollow‘ will be released on the 8th of September, not long to wait now.
