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.

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