My first experience with the Handsome Family was through True Detective’s season 1 introduction. “Far From Any Road” is a song that I’ve kept on multiple monthly playlists because of how great a song it is. This album on the whole has some similarities with the song: it’s dark Americana, but it’s also out of my comfort zone. In some ways, “Far From Any Road” is the more conventional song to modern listeners, although the tunes on this album may speak more closely to the American country music tradition.

It’s a very different album from the country music that we tend to hear these days. I’m not very good at music taxonomy, but I suspect intuitively that “modern” country is an offshoot of bluegrass that was increasingly pop-ified in the early 2000s (really, the Bush years) before it blended with genres like rock and rap more recently. Florida Georgia Line was really the group that solidified this transition.

Singing Bones on the other hand, offers a perspective not taken by the mainstream country music establishment: it is hauntological country, which is fascinating.

I’m not sure who precisely this album will appeal to, as I’m not connected with country music circles, but I found it a nice listen. I’m especially fond of “The Bottomless Hole.”