When the band formerly known as Juniper lost their singer Damien Rice and decided to keep going under a new name, few gave them much chance of survival. Their second album Music in Mouth was so triumphantly good, however, that even the cynics were forced to sit up and take notice. This hotly anticipated follow-up is a much darker and angrier affair, but in its own way it's just as impressive. Most of the songs sound as if they were written in the midst of a fairly vicious hangover, with Paul Noonan crooning bitterly about bent politicians, lost loves and the pains of over-indulgence. The obvious comparison is with early Radiohead, but Bell X1 have a melodic fragility and a way with Irish vernacular that makes them unique. Right now they're the best indie band in the country - bar none.
