More Pounding Indie Folk From The Irish Quintet
Let’s Bottle Bohemia begins with ‘Tell Me Something I Don’t Know’, an upbeat alt.rock song that begins slightly more noisily than I remember The Thrills being on ‘So Much For The City’. This seems to be a recurrent theme throughout this record; it seems a little more upbeat and indie-rock oriented than the previous record. However, Thrills fans don’t be put off, this sound still definitely belongs to the Irish quintet, with Conor Deasy’s breathy vocals complete in their majestic frailty alongside the familiar pretty guitar, banjo and piano parts.
Recent single, ‘Whatever Happened To Corey Haim?’, is a familiar song at track 2, complete with a driving rhythm and interest added by frenetic string parts. The Thrills manage to maintain the pace in ‘Faded Beauty Queens’, a swinging track more reminiscent of earlier Thrills material, with tremolo ornamentation amongst the polyphony of strung accompaniment. The difference in dynamics between the verse and chorus allows a break in the pounding pace and a chance for the listener to locate his head. The thing with The Thrills is that there is such a lot going on, that it is often difficult to hear anything in particular.
Let’s Bottle Bohemia continues in the indie-folk vein with ‘Saturday Night’ and ‘Not For All The Love In The World’. The use of instruments such as the harmonica and the banjo create something special that is rarely found elsewhere in modern music. This is a definite gap-bridger between less and more accessible folk music. The first of the real low-tempo yearning songs comes in at number 5, ‘Not For All The Love In The World’ is built with vocals over a slow comping piano accompaniment, and is instantly recognizable. The Thrills are capable of creating epic songs masquerading as simple love-sick ballads, this is one such song. Unfortunately, I find that songs from The Thrills tend to sound excellent while you listen to them, but as soon as they are over, they are forgotten. These aren’t infectious melodies to be sung in the shower, or wherever else you sing.
‘Our Wasted Lives’ is a return to the uptempo swing rhythm, interspersed with mournful rhythmless sections that pulls your mood up then drags it down repeatedly. This lyrics read like a cautionary tale; ‘Hey kids, there’s no romance in fate, you’ll go far.’ I fail to believe that Conor Deasy & Co. really believe that they have wasted their lives, and if they do, how is the regular man supposed to feel every day as he sits in the queue of traffic to get into Birmingham? This is a pet peeve of mine; musicians singing about how ‘awful’ it is to be on tour all the time or to be a successful and credible musician, idolized by hundreds of people.. Kids all over the world dream of being you, how is that a waste of your life?
This derision of fame and fortune is continued in the inspirational ‘You Can’t Fool Old Friends With Limousines’, unexplainably my favourite song on the album. Unexplainable in that, really, it doesn’t sound particularly different from the rest of the record, The Thrills aren’t a band for massive diversity, but they have a way of making winter feel like summer and making Weston-Super-Mare feel like California. The pounding bass drum makes a return in ‘Found My Rosebud’, another generic indie-folk track, complete with dreamy vocals, stop-start dynamics and acoustic guitars. This continued into ‘The Curse Of Comfort’, another intelligently lyricked piece that derides the life of fame and five-star reviews. This has become something of a theme for The Thrills, amongst other artists, and is becoming a little tired. Being comfortable is such a terrible thing, oh yes, I’d hate to know where my next meal is coming from. It doesn’t stick with me, it just sounds pretentious and ungrateful of the adoration poured upon them by thousands of fans.
The album finishes with another of the upbeat tracks, ‘The Irish Keep Gate-Crashing’, making this album, on the whole much livelier than The Thrills’ previous release. The songs are all intelligent and masterfully constructed, and only lose credibility with me due to some of the lyrical content. Nevertheless, Let’s Bottle Bohemia is an excellent album from an excellent band, encompassing some of the best features of folk and indie music. The Thrills have diversified since So Much For The City, and this has created an album that sounds entirely different yet retains the characteristics to make each song a Thrills song.