Music In Mouth

If there’s one clue Bell X1’s second album is giving away prior to listening, it’s that the songs will be doing the talking.

Recorded in a cottage in Wexford, Music In Mouth, the band’s second album, is a decidedly more lo-fi affair than its predecessor, and goes to great lengths in order to illustrate the band’s evolution from electronica-and-random-weird-noises indie rock to more comfortable, well-worn sounds. No doubt as a result of their relentless touring schedule, Music In Mouth is a more unified, distinctive and cohesive record that showcases the band’s multiple directions, adding further conviction to the depths of epic balladeering on ‘Eve, The Apple Of My Eye’, the quirky pop of ‘Next To You’ or the manic rock of ‘White Water Song’ (albeit with a decidedly indie sensibility).

Another string to Bell X1’s bow is the fact that their search for strange new sounds is no longer confined to an effects board. Take for example ‘Bound For Boston Hill’; a soulful, yet uneasy, down-tempo and (I hate to say it) Radiohead-esque track whose balmy basslines and haunting, otherworldly vocal give dimension to the song without crowding it with layer upon layer of digital wizardry. Similarly, ‘Daybreak’ is a stellar effort that sees the band utilise heady atmospherics to create a warm, fuzzy, dream-like sound.

However, they haven’t banished the guitars. Album opener ‘Snakes & Snakes’ boasts a beefy riff, and the aforementioned ‘White Water Song’ (one of my favourite singles of the year thus far) makes no excuses for its abandon. Utterly manic, serrated hooks prevail, with Paul Noonan’s vocal adding a bluesy gloss. In fact, one of Bell X1’s greatest assets is Noonan’s voice, and his words possess a kind of emotional weight not too dissimilar from that of his former bandmate, Damien Rice – evocative, arresting, and yet so spine-tinglingly hushed. Take ‘In Every Sunflower’ – a gentle lo fi number that sees Noonan employ the honeyed tones that herald the Thom Yorke comparisons: gentle caterwauls and heady vibratos, complemented by sustained, melancholic keyboards and subtle rhythms.

On Music In Mouth, Bell X1 have emerged as a band more comfortable in their own skin. Their sound is now more of a collaborative band effort, and is thus more charged and potent, laced with an inherent Bell X1-ness that overrides and nullifies the fact that the album is not breaking uncharted musical ground.