★★★★★
Say Hi's Eric Elbogen has a well-documented fascination with vampires. 2006's Impeccable Blahs was exclusively about the pulse-challenged, and even before that, "Poor Pete Is a Bit Self-Conscious" told the story of a wayward wanna-be bloodsucker. No surprise then that the first half of Endless Wonder is the aural equivalent of watching a vampire dance party underwater. "Such a Drag" is all dark and sticky with twitchy guitars and tinkling bells...
- www.popmatters.com
2014-07-12
★★★★★
Eric Elbogen has been writing catchy songs for over a decade as Say Hi (formerly Say Hi To Your Mom). On his new album, Endless Wonder , Elbogen doesn't stray far from the formula he's been using since the beginning. Pounding drums, hook-filled melodies, groovy bass lines and various electronic sounds filling any holes--exactly what's to be expected. Sure, each of Elbogen's eight albums are unique in their own ways, but that's usually little more than a shift in instrumentation...
- www.pastemagazine.com
2014-06-25
★★★★★
One-man Seattle band Say Hi (essentially multi-instrumentalist Eric Elbogen, and known formerly as Say Hi To Your Mom), has a way with a groove that is usually lost on most indie-rock musicians, and Um, Uh Oh, Elbogen's seventh LP in the last eight years, will put you in touch with your inner finger snapper...
- www.hour.ca
2011-03-07
★★★★★
Like Prince changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol, Eric Elbogen's switch from the juvenile mouthful Say Hi to Your Mom to simply Say Hi marked a significant transition. While the Purple One's new moniker was willfully inscrutable, the motivation for Elbogen's truncation to Say Hi was obvious: At a certain age, it starts to look a little immature to identify yourself with a "your mom" joke (especially while singing power-pop songs about spaceships, vampires, snowcones, and puppies)...
- pitchfork.com
2011-03-04
★★★★★
Say Hi to Growing Up Eric Elbogen used to make emo that sounded embarrassed to be emo. His songs, recorded by his lonesome on his laptop, charmed with a bleary-eyed youthfulness, cross-breeding lyrics about spaceships and not getting laid with piecemeal production sensibilities--he played his instruments just well enough to get by, offering his one-man-band odes in half-whispered, closely miked breaths, possibly out of fear of waking his apartment neighbors...
- www.pastemagazine.com
2011-02-20
★★★★★
Lead singer/music maker for Say Hi, Eric Elbogen, up and moved away from Brooklyn in search of a new start and landed in Seattle. As someone who "fell out of love with everything he once held dear," the musical result of his life upheaval, The Wishes And The Glitch, is described as "a salutation to new things." The profoundity of these sentiments alone are enough to send a tingle down the perpetual struggler's spine...
- www.junkmedia.org
2010-03-19
★★★★★
For his sixth release, and first on the ever-evolving Barsuk Records, Eric Elbogen sticks with what he already knows: less is more. The result is another thoughtfully crafted record that has plenty to make noise about.Elbogen is the brain behind the home based-recording outfit Say Hi (formerly known as Say Hi to Your Mom). Originally formed in Brooklyn, Elbogen recently relocated to Seattle where he self-recorded his latest offering, Oohs & Aahs, at his home...
- www.junkmedia.org
2010-03-19
★★★★★
The fifth record from the one-man outfit previously known as Say Hi To Your Mom is about as bedroom-band as they come. Judging from its lyrical content, there have been long stretches of down time in Eric Elbogen's bedroom lately. Love lost, love longed-for, love misplaced, love mislaid, love otherwise absent or unaccounted for—every damned song deals with a variation on the grand theme. Even at a brief half-hour and change, The Wishes And The Glitch starts to verge on the banal...
- www.magnetmagazine.com
2009-10-31
★★★★★
If cinema's "mumblecore" had a musical equivalent, Eric Elbogen would be among its pioneers. Say Hi to Your Mom's first four albums cataloged, as their titles aptly conveyed, moping blahs of mumbled disco sadness, Elbogen's lo-fi electro-pop producing lovable geek anthems of androids and vampires cut with cleverness and genuine emotion. With his fifth effort, however, Elbogen has crafted his best work...
- www.austinchronicle.com
2009-07-21