Track Listing

1. Snakes & Snakes
2. Alphabet Soup
3. Daybreak
4. Eve, The Apple of My Eye
5. Next To You
6. West of Her Spine
7. Bound For Boston Hill
8. Tongue
9. White Water Song
10. In Every Sunflower
11. I'll See Your Heart and I'll Raise You Mine
12. Eve, The Apple of My Eye (Single Version)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26813 in Music
• Released on: 2004-06-21
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .23 pounds
• Running time: 54 minutes

Customer Reviews

Quite simply, a great band!
I saw this band at Reading this year, on the smallest stage in the middle of Friday afternoon, and they were the best band I saw all weekend.

I went straight out and bought their album, and it has been in my CD player ever since. It is one of those rare albums where every song is good. They cover an interesting range of styles but keep their own identity throughout. A nice blend of indie, rock, Irish folk, and electronica.

A lot of effort has been put into this album, and it is certainly one of the best I've heard this year.

one of Ireland's best kept secrets.....
Most of you probably haven't heard of Bell X1 before, so before we get to the album itself, a quick potted history: once upon a time there was juniper, and juniper were good. Unfortunately there was a split and Damien Rice went solo. Paul Noonan emerged from behind the drumkit to take over vocal duties (don't worry, not at all like Phil Collins), and Bell X1 were born. This is actually their second album, but their first with Island.

Whilst the debut album ‘Neither am I’ had some fine moments, it didn’t function as a cohesive unit. This, however, is the sound of a band at the height of their powers, and those heights are really quite high. If you like Radiohead, dEUS or Coldplay, you’ll find this album staying in your cd player for a long time to come. The first real highlight of the album is ‘Alphabet Soup’, the song that will do for the banjo what ‘Losing my Religion’ did for the mandolin. And, lets face it, any song that namechecks Maud Gonne (WB Yeats’ muse) can’t be bad. Daybreak could easily have sat in the middle of ‘A Rush Of Blood…’ and not looked out of place.

‘Eve, the apple of my eye’ is the first of the epic ballads, about a love gone wrong (aren’t they all?) It’s a showcase of the fantastic lyrics that the boys come up on a regular basis, as Paul Noonan reflects that ‘The only thing we share / Is the same sky’. ‘West of her spine’ is a nice piece of country hokum, with someone who sounds like Lee Hazelwood doing backing vocals…

‘Tongue’, which may be familiar to some of you from it’s airplay on The Amp is another stand-out track. It bears a resemblance to Radiohead’s ‘National Anthem’ but it actually pre-dates that song, the fact that Rice is co-credited with the writing giving it away. They really cut loose on the manic ‘White Water Song’ before the album takes a more down-tempo turn for the closing two ballads.

‘In Every Sunflower’ is another song about lost love, however this is made all the more poignant by the fact that the subject of the song, Uaneen Fitzsimons, one of Irelands top DJ’s was tragically killed in a car crash. It’s their finest song to date, a fitting tribute to a lady who is sorely missed by many. The lines
‘I wouldn’t swap the pain / for never knowing you / I wouldn’t swap the pain / It was worth it for the view’ could bring a lump to the throat of even the most hardened cynic.

Go buy the album. Go see them live. It’s taken the UK a long time to catch on to Damien Rice Don’t leave it that long to buy this album.

A Bruised Heart
A gorgeous record that really is the 'find' of the summer! While The Thrills are the Irish band attracting maximum media attention right now (in the English press at least), Bell X1 (named after the first plane to break the sound barrier) are cutting a swathe themselves and, if I were a betting man, I'd suggest, are the better bet for the long haul. This is the 'Bellies' second album and some seven years since lead singer Paul Noonan teamed up with Damien Rice in Juniper. The time has been spent well. Noonan is a consumate talent. With a voice that can both soar and linger awhile, Noonan leads a band that combines an uptempo rock presence with a distinct sense of melancholy. Compare the fraught, jagged beat of White Water Song with the langourous and beautiful swoon of Eve, The Apple of My Eye, and you'll see what I mean. But both styles combine effortlessly to create a marvellous whole, so much so that Music in Mouth comes across as a perfectly crafted record. Over and above the recorded material, Bell X1 are also cracking live. Catch them, and this album now, in the future you'll have to look beyond the sound barrier to get close to them.