THE CRANBERRIES

LIKE THE best of Christmas relishes, The Cranberries went down a treat. They’ve mastered the art of solo song titles with more aplomb than even Bono could muster. ‘Special’, ‘Empty’, ‘Linger’ betray no more and no less than the core of each song.

Rawness was the order of the night with The Revenants’ core duo of the Ryan brothers thrashing and flailing their way through a brief set, set alight by G. W. McLennan’s ‘Haven’t I Been A Fool’.

The Berries live are a sight and a sound to behold. Never mind the sonic assaults of Nirvana, the gruesome howlings of Pearl Jam – nobody else is doing it quite like Dolores & Co., so why shouldn’t they? Indeed.

Being the talk of the town has done them no harm either. The voice is still unmistakably her’s. The pulsing guitars are still in the name of the brothers Hogan and Feargal Lawlor’s percussion is as closeknit as a Walton clan gathering. Heck, this quartet sound like they’ve been treading the boards longer than The Grateful Dead, except The Berries manage to remember all their lines all of the time.

It was a sort of a homecoming, though these children of the Treaty City did signal a touch of annoyance at their Capital’s distinct lack of appreciation of their worth from the early days. Looking tired and emotional, they ploughed through everything on their pristine debut – and then let us privy to a few new tunes borrowed from the next album for the night.

‘Empty’, an encore, spirited Dolores behind an acoustic guitar from which she siphoned a mournful weeping wail in the company of Feargal Lawlor’s unheralded but perfect kettle drums. Whooping and hollering her way through ‘Mystify My’ and ‘Pretty’, it looked like we may well have something very special here.

It’s a sound that haunts and hints at darker things beneath the water’s edge. It’s a feel that seeps through to the bone with the help of the barest of strings and rhythm. It’s a touch that’s nowhere else to be found. The Cranberries are back in town to show us why they’ve been crucifying the album charts across the water.

And we may as well take note. I’ve heard nothing else to compare with it for a very long time. Fact is, nobody else is doing it, so why the hell shouldn’t they?

• Siobhán Long