Reviews

The Thrills

Let's Bottle Bohemia

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Review Date: 2004-10-06

The sophomore effort from the Thrills had ample opportunity to let me down. The last album "So Much for the City" really impressed me last year. The Thrills seemed to create their own entire genre. You could hear a bit of the influences of the garage rock scene with them, but the music was by no means rock and roll. In fact it was probably more country than rock and roll. But it wasn't really country either, with the high falsetto vocals from the singer. Reminiscent again to Elliot Smith or Martin Tielli. If you know them at all.

The combination of these genres created a genre bending sound with extremely catchy vocals. The album received great reviews, but commercially it didn't really click. Thankfully the band resisted the urge to alter the music to sell more albums. It would have been easy to do. You can tell the album has had more money put into the production, but other than making it a good clean sound its safe to say the album comes from the same vein as the first. It is however a bit heavier, not so much in the vocals but in the backgrounds it is.

My personal favorite song is the humourously titled "Whatever Happened to Corey Haim". The title doesn't really have a whole lot to do with the song, so much as it just a line in the chorus. Corey Haim is a pretty funny has been though to use as the prototype for the types he is singing about. The song is catchy to me, in the same way a really good Rheostatics song is. You can't help but feel like singing along with the chorus, or bobbing your head or keeping the beat to the songs. This to me is the country influence. The Thrills CD cover could trick you into thinking you are buying a punk album. You aren't. But if you are open minded when it comes to music and enjoy a good genre bending album. I recommend "Let's Bottle Bohemia", although "So Much For The City" edges it out. In my opinion. The Thrills have kinda become my Counting Crows, since Counting Crows now kinda suck.

Score: 8.2

- Dan