It’s interesting to think about what captures our interest when it comes to creations of different mediums. How our past and cosmic make up defined the saying “are is in the eye of the beholder.” How you can star at a painting on the wall or see a movie for the third time and keep discovering new nuances and lines.
With The Thrills, what first caught my ear was Conor Deasy’s vocals, a welcomed distinctness dripping with the freshness of Beatles pop and yearnings of early Neil Young. The second time around it was the many organics used, from a sweet mandolin riff to warm harmonies of piano and other string symphonies all made for the inviting, jangled beat of Pavement or Sleepy Jackson.
But by the third time I was singing along to the choruses to “The Irish Keep Gate-Crossing” and “Not For All The Love In The World” in a way that people in cars driving next to me had cause to roll up their windows. I didn’t care. I was happy and even the typical Denver asshole who wouldn’t let me in on the freeway wasn’t going to rain on this girl’s parade.
Deasy’s perspective on the endless array of human conditions shines through their musical bounciness with a biting irony. His cynical, sarcastic lines remind us that without all the bad we’d never know the good. And I even wondered if he’d spent some time in LoDo on a weekend after hearing “Saturday Night,” which perfectly personifies the empty search for soulmates, “Is this what they call love?/Top 40 night clubs providing the soundtrack for dry humping on dance floors/Is this what they call sex on a Saturday night?”
The Thrills open for the Pixies Thursday, September 30 at Magness Arena. Get there early for Christ’s sake.
