Pitchfork

The Handsome Family, led by the usually formidable husband/wife songwriting team of Brett and Rennie Sparks, seem to have been in the process of toning down their noisy Chicago-style alt-country roots for some time now. They're changing over to a hip, back-to-basics urban hillbilly thing these days, quietly banging on trashcans and washboards, blowin' on moonshine jugs, and employing acoustic guitar, piano, dobro, and some occasional pedal steel with less amplification than Maybelle Carter. Plus, in vintage fashion, the couple recorded this entire album in their own living room, using only a floppy disk and high-powered computer hard drive just like the ones ol' Hank Williams used to use.

The Handsome Family have had plenty in common with like-minded contemporary alt-cowpokes like Son Volt and Palace over the years; but to a certain extent, they have a similar approach to country as Tarnation's Paula Frazer. They give the occasional nod to bands like Galaxie 500 and the Velvets, subtly integrating those rock influences with purist country and bluegrass flavorings. But certainly, both Tarnation and the Handsome Family have set themselves apart from more straightforward country-rock acts more interested in emulating bands like the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Eagles.

The Handsome Family's 1995 debut, Odessa was sonically and lyrically more powerful than anything else they've done, combining dirty guitar work straight from Neil Young's Live Rust, with more obscure and off-beat country-folk stylings. Milk and Scissors was a similarly strange, near-success of an alt-country rock album, as well. In the Air really has no standout cuts the caliber of "Drunk by Noon" or "Winnebago Skeletons." And come to think of it, although 1998's Through the Trees was a little better than average, I think it was, in a sense, a foreshadowing of the dreary things to come on the band's latest offering.

Unfortunately, In the Air steps in some fresh-laid alterna-cowshit on its first two cuts. The flat, lifeless "Don't Be Scared" is a terrible opener. And "The Sad Milkman" follows the all-too-familiar traditional country-folk changes of "On Top of Old Smokey." The title cut isn't bad, though, sporting the familiar rhythmic choo-choo train chug of Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line." But then there's a hackneyed drinking song, "So Much Wine," and "Poor Poor Lenore," a barely-tolerable cow-dirge that reminds me of a damaging childhood incident: one in which my grandmother forced me to listen, back to back, to the entire Joey Bishop country album, and then Eddy Arnold crooning "Make the World Go Away." That same numb state of mental anguish, as I remembered it, sets in after about three seconds of Brett Sparks' awkward wailing here.

To reincorporate the earlier Galaxie 500 reference, take the reverb-drenched, echo-treated atmospherics and the general make-up of a song like "Listen, the Snow is Falling," add Sparks' vocals, and there you have "A Beautiful Thing." Rennie Sparks, with her husband's voice as vehicle for her words, can ensnare your attention with small verbal lassoes, as every so often an interesting phrase catches your ear: "We should have been dancing like lovers in a movie/ But I fell and cut my head in the snow," or, "It's only human to kill a beautiful thing."

On "Lie Down," a nice little tune about a watery suicide, the duo suddenly begins to live up to their potential once again. The slightly menacing chord changes creep eerily along behind Brett's voice, while the main melody is carried by the full-bodied twang of low-end electric guitar. This is arguably the best song on the album, along with the apocalypse-contemplatin' country blues of "When that Helicopter Comes."

Then, unfortunately they revert back to facile country formulas and more predictable "had to murder my gal 'cause I loved her" type themes on "My Beautiful Bride." The song is set to the kind of generic baroque country that would elicit sneers, jeers, and condemning fart noises from the original cast of "Hee Haw." Sure, when these two are at their best, they can hold their own with any of the current alt-country bigshots: Freakwater and Lambchop. But a real Western crooner like Marty Robbins Brett Sparks ain't. And when he actually tries to sing melodically, in any other register other than deadwood country bark, everything just sounds like a put-on.

But it's all a put-on, I guess. I mean, isn't that the point? These are urbanized latte-sipping children of privilege playing music better left to toothless, inbred mountain folk who can barely read or speak. I think these cosmopolitan boys and girls, if they want real authenticity, oughta have the courage to live like the masters: maybe commit armed robbery and spend some time in the Big House or try to grow crops in some god-forsaken dustbowl desert community. Or hell, if nothing else, get the hell outta Chicago café culture and spend a little time milking a cow on some rural Midwestern farm. Slop a hog or two for chrissakes. Then pick up the guitar and Big Chief notepad and write some real country songs.