Things Are Really Great Here, Sort Of...

Andrew Bird played his violin on several tracks on The Handsome Family’s 2000 album *In the Air*, and he’d covered their song “Don’t Be Scared” on his 2003 album *Weather Systems*. So it isn’t a completely out-of-left-field idea for him to do an entire album of Handsome Family covers for his 2014 album *Things Are Really Great Here, Sort Of…*. The Handsome Family—the husband-and-wife duo of Brett and Rennie Sparks—have been making records for more than 20 years, continually adding fans through gradual exposure to their southwestern country sound. With the help here of Bird’s solid backing band, The Hands of Glory, their songs come alive with the advanced tonal colors and vocal inflections that Bird brings. See “Tin Foiled,” “The Sad Milkman,\" and “Far from Any Road (Be My Hand),” which is best known as the theme to HBO’s *True Detective*.