***1/2 The Handsome Family

THROUGH THE TREES

(Carrot Top)

The Handsome Family actually are a family, the husband-and-wife songwriting team Rennie and Brett Sparks -- though various friends help out on this, their third album, including Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and the Pulsars' Dave Trumfio. The Sparkses draw most of their ideas from early country music, chiefly the sense that the songs speak through the singer: Brett delivers most of them in a sort of '50s baritone twang, allowing Rennie's darkly detailed lyrics to work their subtle magic. The Handsomes draw on conventional country melodies (as on "Cathedrals") and standard folk-song symbols (the "lily-white breast" and "silver dagger" of the double-suicide ballad "Down in the Valley of Hollow Logs"). But they integrate modernity with arrangements that incorporate everything from drum machine to melodica to tuba, and songs that allude to Haldol and Slice and the Chicago public transportation system. Through the Trees is a timeless country album for urban grown-ups, a disc whose twin beds and death wishes resonate beyond the here and now.

-- Douglas Wolk