This came out in 2004 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Western wear and Mickey Mouse T-shirts. Long scruffy hair and the occasional beard. Songs that name-check Santa Cruz, Big Sur, Hollywood and Las Vegas. Vocals that remind you of Neil Young and songcraft that borrows from The Byrds and Beach Boys.
From the look and sound of their debut album So Much For The City, it would be easy to presume The Thrills are just another bunch of California boys who grew up surfboarding in the mornings and writing songs in their Laurel Canyon digs at night. Easy, but totally wrong. This quintet hail from the decidedly unsunny climes of Dublin, Ireland, where they grew up listening to the West Coast pop-rock of the ’60s. That inspired them to a) temporarily relocate to Cali a while back, and b) write these 11 gorgeous and artful tracks. Brimming with lush harmonies, dripping with inventive instrumentation, production and arrangements, sparkling with sharp hooks, dusted with raspy vocals and lightly flecked with romantic melancholy, So Much For The City is a more authentic piece of California pop than any Californian has produced lately. So much for appearances.
