Say Hi

SAY HI
The Wishes and The Glitch
Blidsed-Out Pysch-Tinged Indie Rock
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Memo to bands everywhere: joke names…not such a good idea. Turns out all the time I’ve spent intentionally ignoring what I thought was some poop-joke pop-punk band I could’ve been spacing out to sophisticated, pysch-tinged Rogue Wave. Style indie rock. Perhaps it’s maturity that drove Say Hi main dude Eric Elbogen to drop the …To Your Mom part of his band’s name, perhaps it was a relocation to Seattle from Brooklyn (that town could make anyone depressed). Or perhaps it was a broken heart. It all comes through on this eclectic collection of blissed-out, bass and synth heavy ruminations. There’s a quiet sense of dread in Elbogen’s off-kilter, echoing, wounded voice; a world-weary confusion that peaks tentatively through the moments of tension and release, particularly on songs like the beautiful, “Northwestern Girls.” Not that everything is dour. Elbogen and band employ bouncy Cure-style bass lines on “Toil and Trouble” and “Apples for the Innocent” and a resplendent “doo-doo” chorus on “Back Before We Were Brittle.” Turns out you can’t judge a book by its cover. (Euphobia Records; www.ilikesayhi.com)

Originally published in Alternative Press.