Recap The Handsome Family and Marissa Nadler at High Noon Saloon

It’s impressive that The Handsome Family has consistently put out well-constructed alt-country tunes for the last 16 years, but it’s even more noteworthy that, in a time of massive cultural acceleration, the husband-and-wife duo of Brett and Rennie Sparks is still married and happily touring. A swaying Madison audience warmly received the band on Friday night at The High Noon Saloon. The evening began with a mostly-solo set of dreamy psych-folk from Marissa Nadler. Opening with the finger-picked “Diamond Heart,” Nadler plucked away at her guitar as her lushly operatic voice beamed. As the folkstress’ brilliant set swam forward—pulling largely from the new Little Hells and 2007’s Songs III: Bird On The Water—Nadler was eventually joined by a second guitarist, Carter Tanton (from the Cambridge, Mass. band Tulsa), who added crawling textures and vocal harmonies to songs like “Dying Breed,” “Sylvia,” and “The Hole Is Wide.” After Nadler closed her set with the haunting “Dead Wives Club,” The Handsome Family took the stage, launching straight into the playful, if melancholy, shuffle of “After We Shot The Grizzly.”

“You ever get in a mood where you think inanimate objects are laughing at you? That’s what this song’s about,” declared bassist/banjoist/vocalist Rennie Sparks (a former fiction writer, who handles most, if not all, of the group’s vivid lyrics) before the quartet went into the crooning balladry of “Little Sparrows.” The distinct baritone of Brett Sparks shook and soared across his bandmates' slide guitar and swelling violin, while Rennie's bass walked slowly over brushed drums. Although the group is currently touring behind this year’s Honey Moon, the set pulled from all corners of Sparks’ eight-album discography. Rennie shared witty anecdotes between each song, at one point poking fun at her own computer-illiteracy: “For the longest time, whenever I would look up anything on Druids with Google, Wikipedia would always come up—so for the longest time I thought it was a Wiccan site.”

After the set hit its climax with “All The Time In Airports,” the band followed up with two encores: “Don’t Be Scared” and saddening waltz of “My Friend.” They walked offstage with huge grins on their faces, showing no sign that they'll abandon their old-fashioned ways in the near future.