THRILLS - Teenager

Pop to the nth degree. That's the best slogan to sum up the third effort from Thrills, the Irish band that keeps hovering between hummable moods and an inability to really take flight. The previous "Let's Bottle Bohemia" had drawn plenty of curiosity thanks to its easy-going sound, deliberately and somewhat forcibly "alt-pop" in flavor. And that's exactly the real limit of Conor Deasy and co.: Thrills remain too unusual for the mainstream crowd, yet too easy to win over the indie faithful. The melodies are well-crafted, but everything comes across as one giant deja vu, making for an album that works fine on the beach but melts away like snow in the sun once you bring it home, exposing a fundamental lack of substance.

Right from the opener, "The Midnight Choir," it's a triumph of shortcuts, hooks tossed out like bait into a well-stocked sea, choruses that once again draw heavily from Beach Boys and the like. It's the same old pop stew, seasoned with light yet insubstantial country-folk touches (the slide guitar flavoring "Teenager" and "Should've Known Better," the harmonica on "I'm So Sorry"). The uptempo tracks are entirely interchangeable: "This Year," "Nothing Changes Round Here," "Long Forgotten Song" - all tremendously catchy, hummable, whistleable, radiating cheerfulness and sound arrangements with effective openings, but with a lightness that after a few minutes gives way to boredom and indifference.

At times the ideas are even less inspired than usual, as with the overly plodding "Restaurant"; other times the band is clearly spinning its wheels, as on the more melancholic "I Came All This Way"; and when the bpm drops too low (the already-mentioned "I'm So Sorry"), things can only get worse. The closing "There's Joy To Be Found / The Boy Who Caught All The Breaks" (actually two separate, distinct songs, though contained in a single track), despite its six and a half minutes, fails to salvage the fortunes of a record that, all things considered, amounts to little more than a summery melodic muddle we'll barely remember in a few weeks.

Dubliners playing at being Mediterranean, dreaming of carefree Spanish and Italian beaches. Distracted by fleeting summer romances and sweltering nights spent staying out late, they risk failing their September resits.

If the third album is the one that tells the truth, chances are Deasy and co. will have to repeat the year.

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30/08/2007