CD Reviews

Hem

Funnel Clouds | Wavland

By SHARON STEEL | December 11, 2006

3.0 Stars

You’d be hard pressed to find anything written about Brooklyn’s Hem without the mention of at least one of three things: a honey-synonymed description of Sally Ellyson’s voice; a recapped version of how the band, who range from a four-member core to an eight-piece ensemble, found Ellyson to complete their “countrypolitan” folk-pop line-up seven years ago through a tiny ad in the Village Voice; and the support given by NPR’s All Things Considered to Hem’s first album, Rabbit Songs, a labor of love that bankrupted several band members and has given Hem the chance to tiptoe out of quiet obscurity at a measured pace. They can be counted on to provide excellent anecdotes. More than that, though, they can be trusted to deliver modern Americana lullabies that are equal parts pedal-steel twang, hot summer poetry, and scene-setting harmonies comforting as a low whisper in a dark room. Funnel Cloud doesn’t have quite the sparse, plucked beauty of Rabbit Songs or the golden tones of Eveningland, but Dan Messé, Hem’s primary songwriter, is expert at orchestrating songs to coax the right levels of sealed-off tenderness out of Ellyson’s pipes. So even if this disc sounds ready for broadcast over a wide-open prairie, it’s still capable of nestling in spaces just big enough for one.

Related: Garment district, Logically speaking, Goin’ Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino, More

Topics: CD Reviews , National Public Radio Inc., Accidents and Disasters, Natural Disasters, More

| More

Most Popular

The Current Issue

Table of Contents

Cover Archive

Masthead | Authors | Contact us

Blogs

Where To Follow Me
Talking Politics | March 24, 2013 at 11:09 AM

Mo Takes His Turn
March 21, 2013 at 12:59 PM

[Q&A] KMFDM's Sascha Konietzko on art, Columbine and having balls
On The Download | March 18, 2013 at 3:22 PM

See this film series: The Belmont World Film Series @ Studio Cinema in Belmont
Outside The Frame | March 18, 2013 at 11:00 AM

See this film: This is Spinal Tap [with post-film talk by expert from Acoustical Society of America] @ the Coolidge
March 17, 2013 at 12:00 PM

ARTICLES BY SHARON STEEL

YO, JONNY! THE LOVE SONG OF JONNY VALENTINE | February 05, 2013
Sometime after becoming a YouTube megastar and crashing into the cult of personality that has metastasized in contemporary society, Teddy Wayne's 11-year-old bubblegum idol Jonny Valentine is hanging out in his dressing room getting a blow job from a girl who doesn't even like his music.

LENA DUNHAM AND HBO GET IT RIGHT | April 13, 2012
When a new television show chronicling the lives of young women arrives, it tends to come packaged with the promise that it will expertly define them, both as a generation and a gender.

EUGENIDES'S UPDATED AUSTEN | October 12, 2011
For his long-awaited third novel, Jeffrey Eugenides goes back to look at love in the '80s — and apparently decides that it's a lot like love in the early 19th century.

REVIEW: RINGER | September 08, 2011
Sixty seconds into the CW's new psychological thriller Ringer, star Sarah Michelle Gellar is seen running from a masked attacker in the darkness.

LOVE'S LEXICOGRAPHER | February 10, 2011
As the editorial director at Scholastic, David Levithan is surrounded by emotional stories about adolescents. Being overexposed to such hyperbolic feelings about feelings could easily turn a writer off pursuing such ventures himself — despite the secrets he may have picked up along the way.