 In our current media-oversaturated culture, it’s not only possible for a band to become a household name after playing a handful of gigs, it has become the norm. Then there’s the case of 34-year-old Eric Elbogen, a singer-songwriter whose decade-long list of career deflating obstacles includes sparsely attended tours, an amusing amount of line-up changes, and one very unamusing band name (Say Hi to Your Mom). Despite the fact that his band has “broken up 37 times”, Elbogen has bravely soldiered forward, releasing a new album almost every year since 2002, and eventually finding a home on the Barsuk label. His latest release, Um, Uh Oh, his third since rechristening his now one-man band Say Hi, is an unexpected breakthrough that finds Elbogen fully embracing his underdog status.
Say Hi’s music, often written off as run of the mill indie, is unlikely to make much of a first impression. If it sounds like something you can easily hear someplace else, it’s because you can. For this release, Elbogen adopts Spoon’s minimalist aesthetic and sings like a caffeinated M. Ward. While earlier albums were powered by driving, Cars-y synths, this sparse, homemade collection might best be categorized as polished lo-fi. Musically, there’s scarcely an original moment here, yet Elbogen somehow manages to rise to the task of infusing familiar arrangements with new life. The prickly narrator/composer comes across like a brooding barfly who is a closeted romantic that can turn a memorable phrase on command. If you’re willing to saddle up next to him for a short spell, you might find his downer charm irresistible.
Opener “Dots on Maps” effectively sets the template. Over rumbling bass and judiciously applied piano and guitar, Elbogen sings of a couple speeding willfully toward uncertainly. Nobody here has any answers, but instead of getting too worked up about it, everyone seems content to forge ahead and consider the consequences after the fact. There’s always something ugly just around the corner, and Elbogen flirts with it gleefully. On the twisty leadoff single “Devils”, he’s thrown open his house to the man downstairs and is thus unable to “make it back from the dark, dark, dark”. He closes out the song sarcastically repeating “Oh woe is me indeed”, suggesting that the dark, dark, dark might not be a bad place to be. On the deceptively bouncy “Take Ya Dancin’”, he beckons a young lady to the dance floor with “You’re stomach’s not full of butterflies / And your head’s about to burst / Your organ has no player / And your hands are looking worse.” Might as well party through the pain, right?...full text |
| If you've been a Say Hi fan in the past, you're going to feel that Um, Uh Oh is a large step in the evolution of the band. If you haven't, this is the record that's going to change your mind. Say Hi has broken up thirty seven times in the last decade. If the band were what most casual listeners assume it is (ie, a traditional four piece rock outfit), things would have run their course shortly before the release of the first record in 2002. But the resilient (if mopey) bedroom recordist Eric Elbogen, who performs everything you hear on the Say Hi records and recruits musicians to perform the material live, always manages to continue moving forward, despite the ample foils that keep presenting themselves. Um, Uh Oh is the result of the last ten years of Elbogen's experiences with failing relationships, both musical and otherwise. It is also his best record to date. It's weary and blue-noted; revealing, personal and pained, and there's expressiveness in his performance absent from previous releases. In fact, it's difficult to fathom that the same songwriter that once wrote the sugary frivolity of the early Say Hi material could have written such a mature collection of songs....full text |
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