New Mexico-based Americana duo The Handsome Family is a storytelling musical machine. Through their spare, twangy, countrified songs, married couple Brett and Rennie Sparks tell scenic, dynamic tales of heartbreak, loneliness and frightening scenarios. They handle whimsical, emotional ditties about puppy love, unusual animals and mysterious spirits equally well. Thematically, it's safe to say, they cover a lot of ground.

While Brett composes the music for The Handsome Family (a role he's inhabited since the duo formed in Chicago in 1995), Rennie writes the lyrics to the songs. A native of Long Island, NY, Rennie started out as a fiction writer before getting into music, so her literary sensibilities were already primed when the group began writing and recording at its longtime Albuquerque digs.

The Handsome Family produced its latest two albums, 2009's love song collection Honey Moon and 2010's lost-track compilation Scattered, the same way Brett and Rennie have always created recordings: alone in their home studio. A forthcoming effort, tentatively titled Wilderness, is due next spring. The record is based on a series of essays Rennie has been writing over the last year.

"All the songs are about animals. It's a kind of bestiary," she says. "There are songs about wildebeest, eels, glow worms, caterpillars, spiders, woodpeckers and frogs. I have a collection of pictures and drawings that will go along with them. I looked up information on all sorts of animals and found out all sorts of strange things. It's not just things about the natural world, but it's about the wilderness of the Internet, too—where you can find the weird things that people post."

With Wilderness, fans shouldn't expect The Handsome Family to take a sudden stylistic detour into sunshiney "Sesame Street" territory or Pet Sounds experimentation; the collection will likely be as quirky and grim as anything the band has produced before.

"The song about the wildebeest is about the basic wildebeest facts. [It's] a fascinating creature, but it's about how living as an individual wildebeest really sucks, and how their lives are spent running away or into other creatures who are going to kill them," Rennie says.

"I've also been reading about Stephen Foster," she continues, "who died in his 30s after a sad life where he'd been abandoned by everybody. He died, but his music lived on. An individual wildebeest might be dragged into a river by a crocodile, but the herd is strengthened by his sacrifice."

It might seem strange to align beasts from the Serengeti with 19th Century songwriters, but the concept seems appropriate for the strange Sparks twosome. Traveling the country to search for more strangeness while performing their music comes naturally to them, as well. The Handsome Family's latest tour leads the band through Georgia and the Southeast for the umpteenth time.

"I still love traveling through the South," Rennie says. "For one thing, I always get to add to my pickled egg collection. I have a fine pickled egg collection going on, but it's been a while since I've added to it. I also have over a hundred dog food cans in a collection, and I'd like to add to that, too."

Rennie and Brett normally perform and record as a proper duo, singing harmonies and swapping various guitars and stringed instruments between songs. Occasionally, they incorporate extra sound sources to enhance the rhythm or mood of the music.

"Our obsession is with really old things, but it also involves really modern things," she says. "I love researching Medieval ballads—but I love the fact that I can use the Internet to do it. We both love stately old gospel music, but we sometimes use drum machines to play it. It's funny, using modern technology to get that old-time feel."

On their summer tour, the Sparkses won't have to program a drum machine or trigger any digital samples, because they'll have a guest musician in tow.

"I'll be playing the banjo and the ukulele bass, as always, while Brett will represent the rock and roll side with his electric guitar," Rennie says. "Our guest drummer, Jason Toth, will handle the percussion and glockenspiel. He has the lightest touch in the world."

Having a tasteful timekeeper like Toth, one who can simultaneously play delicately, slowly and assertively, might be The Handsome Family's secret weapon these days. "He's really a special drummer to watch," says Rennie. "There's a beautiful, strange dance he does with his arms. He does amazing things with the songs."

If Toth's delivery on the drum kit can truly match the eccentric moods and themes of Brett and Rennie's music, this Family might just adopt him for good.