The Handsome Family – Twilight
Carrot Top 2001
Listen while reading:
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We arrived in 2001 and so did the fifth regular full length Twilight. And you can call me a fool but I said In The Air would sound more vital and maybe a bit more catchy and not as haunting as Through The Trees. And that’s right and you maybe call it sounding airy. Do you get what I mean? The airy sound and the album title, In The Air, right…and now look at the title of the 2001 album, Twilight – yap…You can tell that the album must sound different than In The Air just by reading the title – and it seems to be true because the overall picture of the record is again more haunting and myterious. At the same time they use the keyboards in a very expressive and generous manner (as they did on In The Air) wherefore I would call Twilight the perfect combination of Through The Trees and In The Air. But I can imagine that this is a bit of a challenge for some listeners because you mustn’t forget that we still talk about a form of country music here. And I think there are other genres who are easier to digest than some mixture consiting of country, spooky atmosphere and relentless keyboard usage. But, and this should be a big BUT, don’t judge the music only because of the words you read, take the time and give a good listen to it and you will see the beauty of it. And before I continue writing about Twilight itself, I have an advice for you: Never, and I really mean never, use a track you like as the melodie your alarmclock will play to wake you up. Not only that you develope a certain hate against it but you ruining your album experience at least forever because your mind will get in a very freaky condition if you listen to the same track in a regular way and you say to yourself that there is no point of hating this track because it sounds like super cool but your body is in a real rush for it is the cursed sound you hear everytime you have to get up. Believe me, this is nothing you want to feel ever in your whole life – and I can tell you because I can’t listen to Cold, Cold, Cold in a normal fashion anymore because of my stupidity. But hey, what’s done is done, right? Arrrgg…Ok, back to topic. As you listen to Twilight and you know the other releases that followed this record you can perceive certain characteristics of the following albums. For example the track Birds You Cannot See – I think it points towards songs like The Loneliness Of Magnets from their 2009 release Honey Moon. But I think I will do this in retrospect when we arrive there. In the end I think Twilight eredicated the weaknesses (if you call them so) of In The Air and proved that The Handsome Family was back in their full capacity combining the best moments of In The Air with the characteristics of their masterpiece Through The Trees to bring some first class unique sounding alt. country, call it southern gothic, into being.
