The Cranberrie
Album: Roses
Label: Cooking Vinyl
Tracks: 11
Website: http://www.cranberries.com

An eleven year gap to the previous album is always going to be a question raiser. Is this simply a reformation simply to cash in on the increasingly important nostalgia market? Are the key members of the band still there? Does the band retain its feel? Amongst many others.

Normally if it's the former, the new album tends to be a greatest hits package with maybe one or two new tracks, fortunately "Roses" doesn't go down that line. Similarly all of the key members of the Cranberries have made it to the new recording and yes the band have retained their essential feel.

I've always kept a weather eye on The Cranberries since my first encounter with the band via a 12" white label of their "Uncertain EP" on obscure Irish label Xeric back when we were still a paper magazine. I did a short interview with them at the time. Subsequently they acquired Geoff Travis, the founder of Rough Trade as their manager and he signed them to Ireland. The rest as they say is history

The band had a pretty good career, five albums over eight years, many of them at the hands of Smith's producer Stephen Street, who also takes the helm for the new album. It's also no coincidence that "Roses" is out on the Cooking Vinyl label. Cooking Vinyl have done an excellent job of providing a home for bands that should have retained a reasonable following, but may have fallen from their former heights.

Whilst eleven years may be an extended period, this album did need a gap from the 2001 album "Wake Up And Smell The Coffee". You can feel elements of that album in this cut, but you can also feel the influences of the early albums to create a sound that contains all the best aspects of the band's sound.

It doesn't have the same impact it had back in the day, when it was new and fresh, but "Roses" does contain a good number of songs that would be considered part of core works had they been released at the time and importantly they are songs that can be judged positively against a lot of songs from the here and now, this is a lot more than an exercise in nostalgia.

Delores O'Riordan's distinctive vocals dominate the proceedings. She can still make your heart feel like it's breaking and she can still sound like she can take you out with a good solid blow. Her voice remains a formidable weapon that seems to have lost nothing over the years.

The band know how to put a song together and more importantly how to deliver it. ""Roses" feels like the welcome return of an old friend.

Neil King