Bell X1 release their fourth studio album, Blue Lights On The Runway, on March 2 2009, following the multi-platinum Irish success of last set ‘Flock’, sold-out shows in their native country’s biggest venues, and a breakthrough in the US, where their songs have featured on Grey’s Anatomy, One Tree Hill and the O.C.

‘Blue Lights On The Runway’ is quite simply the band’s finest statement yet. Continuing the musical evolution of its predecessor, it’s a timely release that, like The Flaming Lips ‘Soft Bulletin’, Mercury Rev’s ‘Deserter’s Songs,’ or Elbow’s ‘Seldom Seen Kid,’ should finally cross Bell X1 over to a mainstream UK audience. At a first listen, both lyrics and melodies might sound deceptively simple, but pay it some attention, massage the back of its neck a little, and sonic experimentation, witty vignettes and rhythmic invention come purring through.

Echoes of critically-adored previous hit ‘Flame’ abound in two impossibly catchy future singles, the Talking Heads-influenced ‘The Great Defector’ and the soaring ‘The Ribs Of A Broken Umbrella’ [release dates TBC]. Other highlights include ‘Blow Ins’, an existential gasp at transience and inconsequentiality, and the stunning ‘Better Band’ which, with its three ‘movements’, typifies the band’s style of insistent, multi-layered hooks and careful layering. Closing the album is ‘The Curtains Are Twitching’, a crepuscular elegy polished by funereal brass flown over from the Big Easy herself, New Orleans. It’s sunshine pop with a heart of darkness. Or is it, perhaps, dark pop with a hopeful heart?

The band started recording ‘Blue Lights’ in October 2007 in the 17th century Ballycumber House, Co Offaly, a freezing cold castle with, according to singer Paul Noonan, “wonderfully awful patterned carpet and wallpaper.” Other recording spaces included a disused factory in Inchicore, and bassist Dom's garage in Meath, Ireland.

After securing a North American deal with Yep Roc, Bell X1 spent much of 2008 in the US on promotional duties, which included a sell-out at Bowery Ballroom in New York, shows in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Toronto, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, the Late Show with David Letterman and The Late Late Show with Craig Fergusen. Their music was also used on Grey’s Anatomy and One Tree Hill. Meanwhile they continued to consolidate their position in Europe with ever more successful headline shows and sold-out tours, returning to Ireland (and County Kildare) in July for a performance at Oxegen 2008, where they headlined the Green Room on the Friday night.

Potted History: Having made music together in various guises since the early 90s, Kildare school friends Paul Noonan, Dave Geraghty, Dominic Phillips and Brian Crosby (who recently departed the band to pursue his passion for production work and writing soundtracks) communed under the name Bell X1 to release their debut album for Polydor Records, ‘Neither Am I’, in 2000. Three years of touring and writing, and a label move to Island Records, brought its successor, ‘Music In Mouth’, and the beginning of the band’s inexorable rise in their home country as well as an invaluable foundation around Europe. After the widespread critical and Irish #1 album success of third album ‘Flock’, in the beginning of 2007 the band parted company with Island/Universal. That summer, they went it alone with a highly successful Live CD / DVD package, Tour De Flock, on their own label, (BellyUp Records) which captured them at a pivotal point in their career.

So now it’s all to play for. With a simultaneous worldwide release in place for ‘Blue Lights On The Runway’, only one question remains: is the world finally ready for Bell X1?