Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 20/03/06
Label: Island

Many people probably now know that Radiohead take their name from a Talking Heads song. What far fewer folk have a handle on is how to join the dots between the two bands. It seems simple enough - art rock old and new - but where Talking Heads grew ever outwards, encompassing the world music frontman David Byrne would nurture on his Luaka Bop label, Radiohead have become increasingly insular bedroom boffins since "OK Computer". With "Flock", their third album but only the second to get a British release, Ireland's Bell X1 have unearthed the missing musical link - and it's marvellous.

Pixies were a huge influence on early Radiohead and there's a steal from "Nimrod's Son" on "He Said She Said" here, but it's a brief dalliance. Rather than aping the stop-start dynamics of Black Francis, "Flock" has a poise rare in a modern record, in a pop world of bluster, sweat and too many notes. It's restrained and delicate, its power slowly becoming apparent over the course of the 11 tracks on offer. Much of the credit must go to singer Paul Noonan. His voice unites elements of Byrne's intensity, Thom Yorke's range and even Ian Curtis' mania at moments but there's an undertone of deep sorrow that's entirely individual and improbably moving, even with the least emotive of the lyrics.

Don't expect rabble-rousing declarations or faux-poetic posturing - there's a socially-conscious mind at work here, as troubled by the bigger picture as it is by romantic entanglements. So opener "Reacharound" invokes prostitutes - in order to draw a parallel to politics, while "Just Like Mr Benn" ponders whether an internet relationship could survive in real life - "What if I appeared as if by magic? / Just like in Mr Benn".

Meanwhile, "Bad Skin Day" and closing track "Lamposts" provide slow-burn anthems Embrace would envy. The latter fades away to nothing then comes back stronger for a haunting mass chorus of "I've been walking you / Into those lampposts again / I'd rather do that / Than let go of your hand." The twinkling, hypnotic shuffle of "Bad Skin Day", with its refrain of "Someday we'll all wear a crown" is magnificent, the kind of song that, through its arrangement alone, could make you weep.

On "Natalie", Noonan sings: "History is written by the winners / And I want my say." What this eloquent album says, quietly and articulately, is that while Radiohead will - of their own volition - never make another album like "OK Computer", Bell X1, if they carry on in this vein, may well create its equal. "Flock" really is that good.

    by Emma Morgan