The Thrills have put up with this ever since the unexpected success of their debut album in 2003. It wasn't just the lazy drawl of Deasy's cracked American accent, his thrift-shop garb or his good looks. It wasn't even the cartoonish, almost frivolous obsession with 1960s Californian pop. It was, and is, all of these factors that makes The Thrills the easiest target in Irish music.

It's not overstating things or being disrespectful to say that there may not be a more unfashionable band in Ireland today.

That's not my opinion, although I have for a period of time perhaps shared it without ever really knowing why. Every single person I told I was interviewing The Thrills expressed a kind of weary snobbishness. As if The Thrills have come to represent the spoiled child we all have to live with from time to time. The guys for whom everything has come all too easy for. The J1 band . . .guys who because of their fortuitous station in life present to the world a sense of Irishness we all wish didn't exist. They should be hung for treason, Goddamnit.

And now, after three years, Deasy, Ryan, Padraic McMahon, Kevin Horan and Ben Carrigan have returned with their third album. And nothing's changed.

Approaching the twilight of their 20s, said third album is vintage Thrills, if you are allowed to say so. It took the lads so long to make because just when it was ready to be released they got cold feet, reined it in and made it into an altogether different record.

"A lot of people wanted us to release it, " creaks Deasy, "but we wanted to get it right. It's a really important record for us so we spent a bit longer on it . . . a lot of the songs were missing something." Deasy cites Radiohead when he says that without a record company breathing down your neck "you get nothing done.

'Midnight Choir', the first song on the album, was actually the very last song we wrote. As soon as it was done we knew that it was the last piece in the jigsaw".

Teenager is a misleading title for a number of reasons. It was the only thing the band knew about the album from the outset.

"For once we had a title before we had the songs. A lot of early songs were youthful and about adolescence but of course, like anything, it changed." Part of the reason for this was that the new songs that completed the project were not about adolescence at all. "It changed a bit because it's also a record about growing up and leaving youth or adolescence behind, and then songs like the title track or 'Should've Known Better' which are maybe about a middle aged person thinking about how their youth changed so it is the same idea but maybe from a different angle."

By the way, the aformentioned song is not a cover of the 1984 Jim Diamond hit. Now that would have been an extremely uncool, if potentially inspired, move.

"On the one hand we didn't want to pretend we were like 18 or 19, " says Deasy, "but we also didn't want it to be a 'mature' record. At the outset we agreed there would be no strings on the record. We also said that there would be no brass on the record.

We didn't want to be sentimental or nostalgic, and wanted the songs to be quite neutral in that regard. Obviously when you are as obsessed with melody as we are those things aren't there but I didn't want this to be our mature album, which would have been tricky if we had added strings or brass. Plus, if you were a teenager you'd hardly call an album 'Teenager' so. . ."

Ironically, The Thrills have at worst actually bought themselves more time. If they had tried to make a statement of intent, a grown-up album for want of a better word, chances are it would have blown up right in their faces. Teenager, with its incessant melodies, strong vocal performance from Deasy and its mandolins and banjos, is an extremely likable album perhaps because it doesn't take itself too seriously.

Now, if only their critics felt the same way. "I think the thing is we didn't do it the way certain people would have liked us to do it, " says Ryan of the band's development. "We did it our own way. We didn't play in Whelan's every Thursday night, we didn't play in the Temple Bar Music Centre every Sunday afternoon. We didn't play any gigs. We were still rehearsing, we were only 16."

Deasy agrees. "We were under the radar which meant that when we signed and started touring we had a lot of catching up to do. We didn't play live for the sake of it, just to be a local hero. We were always thinking bigger than that.

Usually by the time a UK label is interested the band is old hat with the Irish labels but when the labels came over and we put out our first EP, there was quite a warm reception in the UK . . . Jo Whiley played it and the NME liked our single."

'One Horse Town', the single in question, brought The Thrills overnight success and a whole world of criticism.

"There were a few characters in Ireland who liked us . . . a couple of people. But when a new Irish band starts to break there's usually a little bit of a break, a little bit of a buzz. Irish bands are given the benefit of the doubt for a week or two anyway - and then they sharpen the knives but at least there's that. However, with us there was a little bit of reluctance and I remember we were a bit disappointed. But the cool thing was when 'One Horse Town' became a really big hit in Ireland . . . certainly beyond what we thought. That was great to see then. A lot of people in Ireland and in the media were very loyal and supportive of the band but we have our critics . . . in fact we have a lot of very passionate critics of our band and I don't know if there is a sense that we didn't do it the way they liked or they felt like we did it without them. . .

"Then again, a lot of people genuinely hate the band, " he laughs. "They don't think that we are for real and there is this Authenticity Police and I don't know what they want - is it blood? And the truth is a lot of that criticism is so incredibly earnest."

They also realise they got lucky. One of their contemporaries, the similarly south Dublin, 1960s-inspired pop band Hal, have failed so far to generate true success and recently parted company with their label.

"If Hal had got in there before us maybe we would have been the Hal, " says Ryan. "I felt bad for them when people were comparing them to us, " adds Deasy, "not because they sound like us but because maybe we've got similar record collections. We had heard about them years ago so we've both been going at for very long but maybe we got a breakthrough. That's the thing about the music industry - I mean you need to have the songs and you need to work hard but you need to have the luck."

But this is 2007. Three years ago there was no MySpace, record sales were stronger and organic pop was more in vogue.

It's a much changed landscape.

"Maybe last year we felt a little it of that pressure, " admits Deasy, "we were a little bit worried - that's healthy though."

"We felt out of the loop a bit, " adds Ryan. When Let's Bottle Bohemia came out only a year after So Much For The City they realised how difficult it is to remain current. Franz Ferdinand had a similar experience with a follow-up record that didn't do as well as the debut. "Yeah, " says Deasy, "they're not that cool anymore."

"The White Stripes have managed it, " says Ryan.

"I remember Brendan Benson was going to support us for a tour and he gave me his CD, " says Deasy.

"You could have been in The Raconteurs, " chuckles Ryan.

They could have called themselves The Raconthrills.

Teenager is out now on Virgin Records. The Thrills are touring nationwide from Thursday.