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I first heard Hem via Pandora's music suggestions. It's exciting when I find new music anymore...there's so much out there to hear now, and so much you have to get through to find the one sound you were looking for. But Hem is one of those sounds I've been looking for. They're rootsy, but not rock...they've definitely got a country/folk/americana feel to them. The music itself is very mellow and the lyrics seem to be well written (of course, I'm not a lyrics person...I generally place the music before anything else). I think something that really draws me to them is the use of the mandolin and the pedal steel.

If you're interested in checking them out, they've currently got several shows on Internet Archive's Live Music Archive...my recommendation would be the show at the Sugar Club in Dublin, Ireland, although there are several good sounding shows there. I think I might even prefer their live performance to what I've heard of their studio recordings.