Skip to main content

10. The Thrills - So Much For The City (2003)

Despite their name, The Thrills are not part of the "the garage band" trend started by The Strokes and The White Stripes (and followed by The Vines, The Libertines, The Hives, etc.). They are from Dublin Ireland, and the only way they might be defined as garage is if you’re referring to the carport on the Wilson brothers boyhood home in Hawthorne California.

Like The Beach Boys, The Thrills take a lot of elements and then make sure that everything is in place and nothing grates the ear. Banjo, harmonica, pedal steel, and organ are all incorporated seamlessly, and harmonies are added everywhere they’ll fit. The lead singer doesn’t have an amazing voice (he sounds somewhat like Wayne Coyne from The Flaming Lips), but it doesn’t matter.

What every review of this album is bound to mention is how the band does not sound Irish at all and how the songs are California-obsessed (L.A., Santa Cruz, San Diego, Big Sur, and Hollywood are all mentioned in various songs). Not since Dre and Pac got together has Cali gotten so much love, but hey, isn’t California the perfect place to romanticize?

What remains to be seen is if on future albums The Thrills can forge an identity completely their own, but for now I’ll love them for being so fun and unassuming, and for creating singalong stompers like One Horse Town and Your Love Is Like Las Vegas. I must also mention that they have added another great song to the ever-expanding Say It Ain’t So pantheon (joining such heavyweights as Weezer, The Outfield, and Hall & Oates).

Rating: A-
Fave Song: Big Sur

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Honoring the Legacy of REO Speedwagon

I suppose I should have known the saga of REO Speedwagon couldn't end with a whimper. Before I get into the latest developments, here's a brief review of what's happened so far: In September 2024 came the announcement that the band was effectively breaking up at the end of the year. Apparently, frontman Kevin Cronin ruled that bassist Bruce Hall was no longer fit to continue touring following back surgery in summer 2024. Hall felt otherwise. Here we learned that REO had essentially become a three-way partnership between Cronin, Hall, and Doughty (who retired from touring in January 2023) following the departure of original members Alan Gratzer and Gary Richrath in 1988. Doughty sided with Hall, so Cronin was outvoted 2-1. No Bruce Hall, no REO Speedwagon. In December 2024 Cronin revealed he would continue performing REO Speedwagon songs with the two musicians who replaced Doughty and Hall, as well as Brian Hitt and Dave Amato (who replaced Gratzer and Richrath), with the on...
Post a Comment
Read more

Billy Joel: 1980 - 1977

When I decided to write about every single Billy Joel studio album I knew had a bit of a leg up in that I'd written reviews of a handful of his records already. What I didn't realize until just now was that those reviews were of albums that had been released consecutively between 1977 and 1980. As I reread those reviews - the most recent of which is 14 years old! - I found that I still stand by them. My writing style has mellowed a bit, and I no longer give grades to albums, but otherwise my opinions then are my opinions now. So here you go... Billy Joel: Glass Houses (1980) Billy Joel: 52nd Street (1978) Billy Joel: The Stranger   (1977)
Post a Comment
Read more

Billy Joel: Turnstiles (1976)

Turnstiles is, along with An Innocent Man and The Stranger , in my top three Billy Joel albums. It has pretty much everything you might want from the Piano Man. It has two beloved classics: "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" and "New York State of Mind." And while I like that they respectively open and close side one, I think these two are the key moments to the album's story, and thus wish they'd been sequenced a bit differently (more on that in a bit). It has virtuosity. The opening to "Angry Young Man," called "Prelude," with its lightning fast hammered piano, is the most obvious display of Billy's growing talents. But it wasn't just him. Turnstiles is the first recorded appearance of the Billy Joel band - Richie Cannata, Liberty DeVitto, Russell Javors, Howie Emerson, and Doug Stegmeyer - and their performances show they were able to handle pretty much anything with aplomb. It has introspection and wisdom. Billy was only 27 years old ...
Post a Comment
Read more