Music

The Thrills’ calling card from 2003 would have caused even the most geographically fine-tuned of listeners to assume they were from southern California, rather than Dublin. ‘So Much For The City’ was not so much sun-bronzed as suffering from third-degree burns, and heavily branded by The Beach Boys, The Flying Burrito Brothers and The Monkees. As overly romanticised soundtracks to imagined, endless ’60s summers spent cruising Big Sur go, it did its job, but served up a large quantity of mythological ham along with its cheese. Their follow up, ‘Let’s Bottle Bohemia’ (ouch) was clearly too swift, as it could have been fashioned out of the trimmings from their debut. The Thrills were still obsessed with LA and, rather like that city, their slightly forlorn, polished pop still lacked a heart. Again, there was polite applause, rather than the standing ovation Virgin hoped for.

None of which bodes very well for The Thrills’ third LP. ‘Teenager’ isn’t exactly a triumph – it basically replaces one set of influences with another – but at least its sounds and sentiments penetrate beneath the surface and are headed toward the heart. The decision not to return to California was deliberate (the album was recorded in Vancouver, in ‘the worst neighbourhood in all of Canada’) and is surely the reason it sounds more sombre and instrumentally restrained, its muted ambience a good foil for Conor Deasy’s songs about loss of youth, what it means to belong and the inevitability of change. Still, old habits die hard and it’s as if the sprawling flatlands of Silicon Valley – rather than the coast – now provide The Thrills’ backdrop. ‘Teenager’ recalls nothing so much as Grandaddy’s ‘The Sophtware Slump’ with banjo, to the point that Jason Lytle could sue Deasy for voice theft. Dashes of Mercury Rev and Spiritualized lessen the doppelgänger effect, but The Thrills still fall puzzlingly short of finding their own identity. It’s odd that they believe they can manage without one.