Blue Lights on the Runway

Album: Blue lights on the Runway
Released: March 3, 2009
Label: Yep Roc
Stars: 3.0
Skippable Tracks: 2

Bell X1’s fourth studio album Blue Lights on the Runway was released in North America on March 3, 2009 and it delivers to your ears a familiar sound that you have come to expect from the band. Shortly after being ditched by Damien Rice in the 90’s, Bell X1 renamed and rearranged themselves become what you know them as today. These Irish dudes have been together for about ten years, and have recently started to make a cross-over. Their big break came after they were featured on one of the Soundtracks from everyone’s favourite TV show the O.C. The album opens strong with the song The Ribs of an Umbrella and continues down this path for a couple more tracks. I caught myself zoning-out somewhere between the fourth track and the line “how log were monkeys typing”; which I found just hilarious. Lead singer Paul Noonan starts to sing “I want a better band” later in the track, and throws in some distortion. The album ends strong with some pop-rock songs with humorous lyrics and a couple of mandatory ballads. Is this the greatest album to come out of Ireland? Probably not, but if Pop is what you want - and you like the sound of Snow Patrol - this will be a nice option for you. In short, no sound barriers were broken here, but some diamonds can be found in the rough.