Tonight, the weight of expectation hangs heavy in this small east London venue. Noel Gallagher is in attendance in a crowd thick with music industry figures. There is, in record company parlance, a "buzz" around the Thrills, an Irish quintet hotly tipped for stardom after just one limited-edition single.

Certainly, their record label has confidence in them. It has already shelled out for the band to relocate from Dublin to California, the better to satiate their love of 1970s west-coast rock. Their website suggests they have already been stung by accusations of musical grave-robbing. "Influenced by the 1970s classic American sound, the Thrills add a modern, focused edge and above all are totally now," it says, adding, with perplexing emphasis and, indeed, perplexing syntax: "That is what they are, they are not however a retro band."

But as their brief set proves, the influence of Crosby, Stills and Nash, Little Feat and the Eagles is not entirely a benign one. On the one hand, nice harmonies, sunny chord progressions and the ever-lovely jangle of the Rickenbacker guitar come as standard. On the other, so does a stifling smoothness. You wait in vain for the temperature to rise.

Tracks such as the recent single Santa Cruz are tidily done and tricked out with soaring organ and electric piano, but if they were any more polite, they would hold the door open for you on your way out. They bring to mind a less raucous version of Teenage Fanclub, who were hardly the world's most confrontational rock band to start off with.

You can see why Gallagher is listening intently. The Thrills deal in what he likes to refer to as "proper songs": the tunes are well-crafted and suggest their writer's record collection is well stocked with tastefully chosen albums. You can also see why their record company thinks they will take off: their sound provides a mellifluous antidote to the weary legions of post-Strokes garage bands. For all lead singer Conor Deary's gum-chewing insouciance, however, there is no escaping the fact that this is rock with rounded edges.