Rating: NNN
According to Say Hi to Your Mom mainman Eric Elbogen, Impeccable Blahs is an inadvertent concept disc, a song cycle about everyday vampires — y’know, mosquito-like hangers-on who aren’t satisfied till they’ve sucked the life out of you. You might not get that from Elbogen’s lyrics, which are Williamsburg-geek witty and oblique, save for a reference here and there to drinking a date’s blood and heartkillers who sink their teeth into each other. The upside of Elbogen’s imagined bloodsuckers is the effect they’ve had on his style, which has expanded beyond bedroom-pop eccentricities to embrace dark, ominous (but still major-key) synths, toothy bass and roughed-up electric guitars. Combined with his jittery vocals, the shadowy sonic qualities make Impeccable Blahs come off like a less confrontational, better-adjusted Xiu Xiu album.
Say Hi to Your Mom swing by the Drake Saturday (July 15).
