Say Hi: Um, Uh Oh

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. (“Hey, kids—turn down that damn amp machine!”)
Is this even the same person? On Um, Uh Oh, Elbogen’s seventh full-length, he sounds like he’s undergoing a confidence readjustment in real time, adopting a raspy, forceful vocal delivery and a thicker production punch that suggests that he’s either purchased better recording software or moved in next to more lenient neighbors (“Just make sure you stop the racket by midnight!”). Since his last album, Oohs and Aahs Elbogen’s voice has toughened up and acquired drawl, suggesting he’s either smoked about 10,000 cartons of Marlboros since 2009 or he’s spent most of that time studying the back catalogues of Arcade Fire and Wilco.