Let's get this over with at the start. This is a great album, choc-a-bloc with great hooks, melodies and harmonies that evoke the great songwriting of the 70s - the Carpenters, Burt Baccarach etc (just like it says in the press bumpf).
But, and it's a big BUT, these boys come from Dublin yet sound like they've grown up in San Francisco. What's that about? Not even the High Llama himself, Sean O'Hagan, Ireland's greatest musical Brian Wilson addict, ever dared to sing like Neil Young before his balls dropped. Conor Deasy does. It had to be said.
Still, what a great record. That The Thrills have managed to back up the chart threat of 'One Horse Town' with this musical muscle is testament to some talent, even if much of it is a study in pop history - The Smiths would certainly have played the intro to 'Big Sur', but they wouldn't have followed it with a lyrical nod to the Monkees.
The Thrills stab when their peers would strum, they harmonise - in a Wilco kinda way - where others would batter and they drop away into a minor chord run down where others would stick to tackling the majors. They're thieves too. The opening chords of 'Deckchairs And Cigarettes' are a direct lift of Kas and Dick's 'Close To You' - but then The Thrills are, safely, banking on most of you not knowing who those two are for a start.
'One Horse Town' is Motown stylee genius for the Dublin ex-pat. Marvellous. 'Old Friends, New Lovers' outrageously borrows the intro to a Demis Rousos hit, 'Save Your Love', and there aren't too many bands you can say that about. A decent slice of lap steel driven C&W called 'Just Travelling Through' at least admits, "if this sounds phoney don't say I didn't warn you..." but by then we're convinced.
An homage of an album, a pub quiz for late nights sitting in the garden with the French doors open - ooh, Roy Orbison lick on 'Your Love Is Like Las Vegas' - and a bloody great sounding one too.
