The sun is out in North-East England today and it’s something close to a summer’s day (for those not familiar with the North-East, that means it’s still cold, but not freezing). So I’ve been in the mood to listen to some of my go-to summer tunes. I usually try to go with something relatively obscure for my throwback reviews, I’m not sure this really counts as it was pretty big at the time. But The Thrills were a band who faded from the spotlight pretty quickly and, 20 years on, they’ve become a bit of a forgotten band.
The Thrills
Big Sur
Coming at the height of the early 00’s Garage Rock Revival era, which saw the likes of The Strokes, The White Stripes, and The Libertines rise to prominence; The Thrills didn’t quite fit with the indie scene of the time. But they were very much in the revivalist vein, just borrowing from different parts of the rock canon.
In their native Ireland their first two albums hit number one, and both reached top 10 in the UK, with their debut being nominated for the Mercury prize. It would be a few years later before I actually got into these, although I remember seeing their videos on The Box music channel late at night, which again hints at how they briefly broke into the mainstream (I don’t remember seeing proper indie bands on there).
On a tangent, I’ve learned that The Box is still going (are music channels really still a thing?). And has been going for over 30 years now! As always No Frills Reviews brings you plenty of useful facts.
Back to the point – It wouldn’t be until around 2005 that I’d really get into my indie phase (when do you grow out of that BTW?) and become a regular NME reader. And already by that point I can vaguely recall that they’d be referenced in a dismissive way. Like NME had decreed that they were no longer cool, and this was a time when that still meant something.
Maybe that’s partly why they faded so quickly; their window for being cool was very brief. A couple of their members went to private school and it all just felt a little bit inauthentic. They were Irish but sang with a prominent American twang, and the lyrics were filled with American cultural reference points. Anytime I listen to British or Irish musicians using overtly American references, my mind immediately goes to David Brent singing “Pretty girl on the hood of a Cadillac, yeah”.
That sense of imitation is just undeniably lame. And, the arrival of the likes of Arctic Monkeys within a couple of years probably helped cement The Thrills irrelevance in the musical landscape of the time: “You’re not from New York City, you’re from Rotherham”.
I think that’s all perfectly legitimate criticism, but it also feels less important 20 years on. Removed from its contemporary perception of cool/uncool, you can appreciate it on a purely musical level.
Anyway, being uncool seems like a bit of an oxymoron, because the music itself exudes an effortless sense of cool. In reality, it was probably a very self-conscious projection of cool. Like interpolating the Monkees theme, just to casually dismiss their relevance in the next line. “Hey hey you’re The Monkees, And people say you monkeyed around, But nobody’s listening now”. Ironically, that line could easily be levelled at The Thrills now. But it’s still a great line, which just sounds cool.
Speaking of sounding cool, you have frontman Conor Deasy croaking his way through (I’m using croaking as a positive here BTW). As if he’s putting in the minimum effort possible, yet his voice could still crack under the pressure at any moment; like the whole performance is an inconvenience to him.
Musically, there’s a hint of traditional folk lurking underneath, and a bit of a jangly lo-fi 80’s indie filter on top. But, it most heavily leans toward the harmonies of late 60s/early 70s folk-pop, evoking some idyllic vision of lazy late summer evenings by the coast. For all the sunshine, it’s underpinned by a sense of melancholy; a recognition that this whole thing is an ideal, a dream which he knows his reality can’t live up to. Maybe, all those American references weren’t so inauthentic after all.
You can forget any deeper meanings though because, most importantly, the song is simply catchy as fuck. Almost every line here is a hook. There’s the aforementioned Monkees line, the “So much for the city” refrain, the “doo dooo doo” bit, the actual chorus… its all great.
Hey hey you’re The Thrills, is anyone still listening now? Well they should be because this is still the perfect laid-back summer tune.
Rating:
Note: This song has over 11 million streams on Spotify alone, so clearly people are still listening now. But that kind of dispels my premise of them being a forgotten band so let’s ignore that…
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