Album Reviews

Album Review: Bell X1 – Blue Lights On The Runway (Belly Up Records)

By Caro Moses | Published on Monday 16 March 2009

I like Bell X1 and I always have done. I’m aware that there’s nothing especially challenging or ground-breaking about the music produced by this Irish pop band, but what they do, they’ve mostly done well, in my opinion. Their last album ‘Flock’, was alternately sweetly melodic and joyfully upbeat, occasionally rather dark, often touching, lyrically smart, and rarely out of my player in its first few weeks of release. For me, their fourth LP ‘Blue Lights On The Runway’ doesn’t have the instant appeal of its forerunner. And the lyrics made me cringe a bit on a couple of occasions. That’s not to say that I don’t like it; the core sound that I like, and Paul Noonan’s appealing vocal style are still very much as they were. There are a number of upbeat radio-friendly tracks like lead single ‘The Great Defector’, as well as some slower numbers that are what I would call ‘a relaxing listen’, but there’s nothing on here that really grabbed me the way a couple of tracks on their third album did; I say grabbed – I was touched, heart-touched – by the likes of ‘Bad Skin Day’ and ‘Rocky Took A Lover’, loath though I am to admit it. I will be listening to the new album again though, and I think at least a couple of tracks on there will turn out to be growers; I haven’t lost faith with Bell X1 and will eagerly anticipate further output, but this particular record inspired me to dig out the back catalogue rather than have a second listen. CM

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