Somehow the term “countrypolitan” is becoming increasingly less adequate to describe Hem’s music. While main songwriter Dan Messe has said the band creates “alt-country, pop-rock orchestral lullabies for adults,” the influence of Tin Pan Alley and musicals from the ’60s are just as evident as, say, the orchestral albums of Ray Charles and Glen Campbell.
That’s especially true on Funnel Cloud, the Brooklyn band’s fourth album. While all the ingredients of 2004’s splendid Eveningland are in place — pastoral tempos, rustic elegance, stately orchestration — the songs on the new disc are crisper and more sharply defined. And while singer Sally Ellyson’s serene, clarion soprano is indispensable to Hem’s sound, the songs themselves often have the enchanting qualities of stand-alone American standards.
“We’ll Meet Along The Way”, the opening track, launches the album in spectral fashion. Framed by muted piano and plucked guitar, Ellyson offers up a spooky lamentation in the spirit of early Cowboy Junkies. Similar moments include “Old Adam”, which sounds like something Joe South might have penned for western cinema, and “Reservoir”, a yearning, nostalgic meditation on heartland simplicity.
When Messe unfurls his musical-with-a-capital-M influences, the album truly takes flight. “Almost Home” could serve as a show-tune ballad of the highest order. Similarly, if Dusty Springfield had tackled Rodgers & Hammerstein, the result might’ve been something like the wistful, sprightly orchestrated “Curtains”. Best of all is “Great Houses Of New York”; packed with melancholy and boasting a timeless melody, this centerpiece brings to mind the best work of Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer.