Thrilling Me Softly

When a Dublin quintet opened for Morrissey last year and introduced themselves as "the Trills", a capacity audience at London's Albert Hall paused and asked, "the what?" That summer The Thrills, as they became known, dominated the airwaves with their take on Sixties sunshine pop and now, after a fittingly bleak English summer, release their sophomore effort, the darker, sometimes sinister, Let's Bottle Bohemia. The critics this time around are far less unanimous in their praise and I, feeling more aligned to the New Musical Express than regional newspaper, The Shropshire Star, am inclined to say that I don't like it, it's rubbish and Pete Doherty is God.

However, none of those things are true, at least as far as I know, but my relationship with The Thrills prohibits an objective review. It began a holiday romance and, having simultaneously returned from the West Coast of America, the band and I traded beached tales and sun-drenched stories of our time in California. "Let's go to San Diego," sang front-man Conor Deasy in all the excitement. "That’s where all the kids go!" And it sounded like a good idea. I would work, save up the cash and follow the kids to Southern California.

However, that plan never came into fruition and a year later we meet again, glancing awkwardly across a non-smoking Irish bar, as you do when you recognise an old flame. But what was ablaze before is now but a glimmer of hope in the dull disillusionment that this country generates in its young. With their debut album, So Much for the City, The Thrills and I shared a professed love for the West Coast and, evidently, the tunes of The Byrds and The Beach Boys. But behind those deceptively upbeat melodies was the longing and loss that marks the end of a summer holiday. Its follow-up, Let's Bottle Bohemia, however makes no effort to disguise its gloom, with song titles such as 'Faded Beauty Queens', 'Our Wasted Lives' and 'You Can't Fool Old Friends with Limousines'. Now when we meet it is to moan about how much it sucks to be here.

"Is this what they call 'love'?" Deasy sings in album highlight, 'Saturday Night', a tirade about the Great British nightlife. And tonight, which is actually a Friday, I found myself asking the same question, sitting under the disco lights with my mate, Sukhi, relinquishing conversation to the Top 40 at top volume, and watching what Deasy calls "dry humpin' on dance floors." "Is this what they call 'sex’?" he continues.

With Let's Bottle Bohemia, The Thrills are again remarkably in tune, not just musically (as expected), but somehow, and rather unfortunately, with my current state of mind – once thrilled, now somewhat disenchanted. "Is this what they call 'hate'?" Deasy asks in 'Saturday Night', and in his breathless, once intense, now tired vocals, kills me softly with his song.

Here's hoping the next Thrills album is more upbeat. As much for my sake, as theirs.