Review Summary: Say Hi To Your Mom, a New York based Indie Pop group, deliver quirky yet clever tunes about Vampires on their 4th disk.
It was over a year ago when I began reviewing. I began my first review in the shower, a place where I would dream up many of my introductions over the past year. In said review, I described the artist I was reviewing as something totally original. The artist was Say Hi To Your Mom (Eric Elbogen) and, upon revisiting that proposition a year later, I have decided that said proposition isn’t entirely wrong. Sure, Ferocious Mopes didn’t contain the originality I wrote about, but it was a damn fun record. The same can easily be said about SHTYM’s 2006 release,
Impeccable Blahs .
Say Hi to Your Mom haven’t changed too much from the last time I reviewed them. They still sit on the brink of popularity and they still craft some of the catchiest lo-fi pop you’ll ever hear, hell, even the cover art hasn’t changed much. This lack of evolution doesn’t bother me as much as it probably should; this is probably a testament to how enjoyable Say Hi’s current formula is. The music is primarily comprised of mellow synths and simple bass lines, with the occasional lead guitar twiddle brought in.
These Fangs is about as solid an example of this formula as any. The drums are simple, but that’s ok. If they weren’t, things just wouldn’t sound right. On top of these pleasantly straightforward drums, are chilled out keyboards and some distorted guitar. All of this supports Eric Elbogen’s relaxed vocals and quirky lyrics perfectly.
One of the more noticeable changes between Impeccable Blahs and its predecessors is the subject matter. Where Ferocious Mopes dealt mostly with robots, (as evidenced in track titles like: ‘The Twenty Second Century’ and ‘Yeah, I’m in Love with an Android’) Blahs deals with a much darker subject, Vampires. The legendary blood sucking monsters turn up in the lyrics (and titles) to many of Blah’s ten tracks. In
She Just Happens to Date the Prince of Darkness Elbogen sings
“She makes things, in her downtime,/From soldered, old computer chips./And has a blog where she predicts brand new indie rock hits./And she's normal and shy like the rest of us,/She just happens to date the prince of darkness. over mellow synth chords. On
Angels and Darlas, Elbogen even references Buffy the Vampire Slayer overtop affected synth lines. As per the usual, Elbogen’s imaginative lyrics are both quirky and clever.
Overall, Say Hi to Your Mom may not have evolved much from their last record, but they still deliver on Impeccable Blahs. Their music, while not required listening, is certainly recommended for all fans of Indie Pop.
-Dan
