Impeccable Blahs

Album review

New York indie rocker Say Hi to Your Mom's (aka singer/songwriter Eric Elbogen) fourth record since 2002's Discosadness is pink, ten songs long, and all about "everyday vampires." Impeccable Blahs, a bass-heavy, melody rich collection of home recorded goth rock/Magnetic Fields-infused electronic indie pop is as sweet as it is spooky, relying on Elbogen's soft and sinister voice to twist tongue-in-cheek lines like "Most days these fangs are inside someone, so you can't see them when I smile" into "come hither" invitations to eternal darkness. The addition of drummer Chris Egan III (The World Without Magic) and keyboard player Jeff Sheinkopf (Sea Ray) lifts Impeccable Blahs out of the occasionally murky abyss of bedroom recording with precision work on standout cuts like "Not as Goth as They Say We Are" and "Angels and Darlas," but it's Elbogen's heartfelt rendering of these Princes of Darkness into blue collar bloodsuckers, "not creepy, goth vampires but rather people just like you and me who happen to get their nourishment from drinking blood," that keeps Blahs from succumbing to pasty hipster irony.

© James Christopher Monger /TiVo