With the Cranberries no more (or at least on an extended sabbatical) it was only a matter of time before their crystal-voiced singer struck out on her own. Or was it? Nearly four years in the making, Are You Listening? is the eagerly awaited first solo salvo from the Limerick siren. Recorded in Dublin and Canada with co-production from Youth, it’s an intriguing prospect sonically, especially given that O’Riordan could quite easily have gone down the singer-songwriter route and produced a pleasant acoustic backdrop to her distinctive vocal style. Or she could have recruited a slew of session guns and come up with a faux-Cranberries sound, keeping the fans and the record company happy until the inevitable reunion comes around. But instead, she's done something far more ambitious by releasing this multi-layered collection of songs that traverses styles and genres.
There are echoes of her recent past; the guitar-driven ‘When We Were Young’ could sit comfortably on any Cranberries album while ‘Human Spirit’ recalls early Sinéad O’Connor who she’s been compared with over the years. Inspired by the birth of her daughter Dakota, the opening ‘Ordinary Day’ is a terrific mid-tempo pop song with a keening chorus and enough melodic hooks to guarantee it radio play and potential hit status. Another tale of domestic bliss, ‘In The Garden’ starts out with playful piano before evolving into a big production number – one part guitar-rock, one part electronica grounded by a metronomic snare.
Her current state of marital bliss hasn’t dulled her lyrical potency and there’s an undercurrent of anger and frustration on a song like the guitar, bass and drum dominated ‘Loser’: “I’m sick and tired of people like you/You think you’re clever but you haven’t a clue.” On the other hand ‘Stay With Me’ is almost pastoral, with gentle acoustic strumming, reverb-ed piano and contemplative singing while ‘Apple Of My Eye’ takes a similar approach. The quirky, ethereal ‘Black Widow’ is Bjork-like, ‘October’ has a Bowie (circa Scary Monsters) texture and the album closes the way it opens with another mid-tempo ballad, ‘Ecstasy’ – with O’Riordan’s multi-tracked vocals providing the dreamy backing to another winning melody.
She's been describing this in interviews as a “new awakening”, the start of a fresh journey and she hits the road for an extensive tour in support of it. Don’t be surprised if it takes off!