IT was booked too late for the spring brochure, the weather had suddenly gone summer on us, and support act The Mendoza Line played in daylight.

This was just another day in the long night of Gothic duo The Handsome Family.

Husband and wife Brett and Rennie Sparks, who have swapped Chicago for border life in Albuquerque, New Mexico, stand outside the boundaries of 9-to-5 bread and butter to observe the bigger picture with wit, weight and weirdness.

They insist on driving themselves around on tour, just so they can experience the dangers that lie in wait driving on the "other" side of the road, dodging motorists and pheasants loved up in the mating season. "I haven't seen a bird that big since Thanksgiving," says Brett.

The Handsome Family's music comes from the other side too, in stories of haunted Walmart supermarkets, bottomless holes, the deeds of a hundred toads and the Giant of Illinois dying from the blister on his toe.

As night fell - how apt for their stygian tales - guitarist Brett's lugubrious baritone filled the old church of St Margaret's with the depth of flavour of a particularly good wine.

The sharpness came from lyricist and autoharp and bass player Rennie, dressed in her little black Frankenstein dress, delivering mischievously dark observations as if she were an adult version of Wednesday Adams, ever humorous between folk songs of age-old melodies and macabre, yet sad, sentiment and ancient lore. Strangely beautiful.

Updated: 11:40 Monday, April 26, 2004