Milk and Scissors
"Milk and Scissors comes closer to capturing the lean, lovelorn soul of old-time country than any of the thirty-something other neocountry records I've waded through this week..."
Monica Kendrick, The Chicago Reader, 8/97.

"Country music has a strong and proud legacy of songs about death, lost love, and broken-down dreams. Chicago's Handsome Family...draw on that rich heritage but bring in their own absurdist postmodern sensibility to the strum-and-twang mix, blending Kafkaesque scenarios with Carter Family crooning and Dali-like imagery with the whiskey-soaked balladry of Hank Williams. It all adds up to an evocative, oddly compelling fusion of the old and the new on Milk and Scissors."
The Boston Phoenix, 7/96.

<>Odessa
"Like the marriage of the Cat in the Hat and The New Ulm Polka Band as officiated by William S. Burroughs in a barnyard."
Janet Ray, Cake, Minneapolis, MN, 3/95.

On the first sweet listen, they seem simple. Hear those near-perfect pop\country sensibilities? Second listen reveals the stray hairs, the twitchy, shifty eyes, the nervous laughter. By the third time out its time to call the cops, 'cause they've dug a lot of holes in their lawn with that backhoe and what are all those smelly janitor drums doing in the garage? They're an evil REM with their dirty uncle Gram Parsons."
Kate Messner, Austin Chronicle, 3/95.

"Songwriting and marital partners Brett and Rennie Sparks have something of a yin and yang relationship, with Brett's gorgeous lyricism providing the perfect tonic for his wife's surreal psychobilly... "The Last" an absolutely stunning ode to aging, longing and regret, would be a perfect vehicle for either Merle Haggard or George Jones."
Bill Friskics-Warren, Nashville Scene, 3/95.

<>"...Their canny and varied musical approaches make me think of a rural Yo La Tengo."
John Chandler, Puncture, 6/95 

Invisible Hands (VINYL-ONLY EP. NOW OUT OF PRINT).

Song list:
Tin Foil, Barbara Allen, Birds You Can Not See, Down That Foggy Road, Grandmother Waits For You, Cathedrals

"Solemn, beautiful, slow and thoughtful. Rennie Sparks' lyrics are, as always, so beautiful..."
The Lumpen Times, Chicago, IL

"The darkest, moodiest music they've ever released."
Randall Roberts, Riverfront Times, St. Louis, MO

 

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