The Cranberries: “Zombie” (Island)

Staccato rhythms and subtle jerks and pauses in the music and the singing make this more than just business-as-usual for The Cranberries. A slow, brooding Siouxsie-like buzzing guitar melody and dirge-like bass and drums counterpoint the elliptical and impassioned vocals of Dolores O’ Riordan as she works her way through the internal psychic and external human tragedies of The Troubles we’ve O.D’d on, on this battered little island of ours. ‘Zombie’ signals a growth in confidence, as The Cranberries experiment without discarding that unique form of understatement which distinguishes Limerick’s finest from all those other practitioners of Celtic soul.