This Irish band has been through a lot of changes, but the core of Bell X1—singer/drummer Paul Noonan, singer/bass player Dominic Phillips and David Geraghty (guitar, keys, drums and vocals)—is still going strong. ARMS took two years to write and record, but the songs sound fresh and spontaneous, full of a delicate passion. Noonan’s warm tenor has the burnished quality of the summer sun. He uses it to good effect on “The Upswing,” a harmony-drenched, mid-tempo ballad celebrating the gentle healing power of love. Geraghty’s subliminal keyboards and the trio’s harmonies introduce “Take Your Sweet Time,” the story of a deaf woman who recovers her hearing at the age of 40. When they sing, “What’s it like to hear music, for the very first time?” it makes us aware of the daily miracles we take for granted.
—j. poet
