Articolo 3

Hoist By Their Own Bombast (November 18, 1998)

The newly blonde Dolores O'Riordan gets even further away from her roots at
the Empire

It was a crucial test of public taste and critical forgiveness when the
Cranberries played their first full show for more than two years at the
Shepherds Bush Empire on Monday. Dormant since their third album, For the
Faithful Departed, earned relatively poor sales and merciless reviews in
1996, the Irish foursome who have notched up album sales of nearly 30
million made this low-key concert the first step in their comeback campaign.

In the spiralling, hiccuping, piercing yodel of singer and lyricist Dolores
O'Riordan, the Cranberries can lay claim to one of the most original and
emotive voices in pop. But O'Riordan is also responsible for some of its
most monumentally crass lyrics, veering from exquisite to excruciating with
alarming regularity.

The good news is that this wholesome Limerick quartet have partially
rediscovered their melodic, folkish roots on their archly titled new album,
Bury the Hatchet. The bad news is that they did not quite manage to
incorporate this shift back towards subtlety in the cramped confines of the
Empire. A newly blonde O'Riordan seemed to be locked in stadium-rock siren
mode for much of the 90-minute set, prowling the stage and punching the sky
as she roughly manhandled brittle anthems which deserved far more care and
compassion.

Admittedly there were moments of beauty amid the bluster, including early
airings for the sparkly acoustic gems Ode to My Family and Linger. These
remain O'Riordan's most personal lyrics, pre-fame compositions which lack
the formulaic ring of more recent efforts, and even her faltering voice
could not entirely erase their quiet majesty. At least one number from the
new album, the tremulous lullaby Saving Grace, tapped into a similar mood of
sparse serenity, but otherwise the singer made little emotional connection
with an expectant crowd.

The remainder of the set alternated between anodyne new material such as You
and Me and Delilah and foot-stomping, chest-beating tantrums which gave full
rein to the band's least attractive qualities. Nor was there much evidence
in either the recent single Promises or the new album track Desperate Andy
that the Cranberries have evolved beyond bludgeoning half-tunes and clumsy
sloganeering.

The foursome ended this unsatisfying comeback show without reclaiming much
ground from their detractors, leaving behind a vague sense of opportunity
squandered. They may no longer embrace mid-Atlantic stadium-rock banality
quite as unequivocally as they did a few years ago, but they also appeared
equally uncomfortable with the mellifluous ballads which brought them
recognition in the first place. Hence the encore revival of their earliest
hit, Dreams, a once elegant shimmer now curdled into something lumpen and
uncouth.

Their forthcoming world tour may revive the old spark, but for now the
Cranberries seem stranded between the sublime and the ridiculous, milking a
limited repertoire of weary vocal tics and increasingly graceless melodies.

STEPHEN DALTON © Times Newspapers Limited