Fans looking for “Far From Any Road,” the song the Handsomes contributed to the soundtrack of HBO’s True Detective, won’t find it here. That track got more than 14 million YouTube hits, putting the Handsomes on the radar of mainstream America, but their success hasn’t changed them. Unseen is as grim and foreboding as the rest of their work, another low-key masterpiece wrapped in spooky twanging guitars, heartbroken harmonies, droning tempos and lyrics that often don’t rhyme, delivered in Brett Sparks’ deadpan, rumbling baritone.
On “Gentlemen,” a song about a séance that actually conjures the spirits of the dead, Sparks tells us, “The unseen world is close.” It’s a phrase that echoes through a collection of beautifully desolate songs celebrating supernatural beings (“Underneath The Falls”), gamblers on a losing streak (“Silver Light”) and unhappy women haunting their lovers, even though they haven’t died yet (“The Red Door”).
—j. poet
