Wake Up And Smell The Coffee
(MCA)
Check out that title. So mid-1990s, isn't it? Five albums into their career and the Cranberries are barely treading water fast enough to keep from drowning. It's like the past eight years never happened: if someone told you this was comprised of cast-offs from 1993's debut Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We?, you'd believe it. They even rip off themselves: Analyse is simply Dreams with a different name. Even the cover art reprises that found on 1999's Bury The Hatchet: pseudo-Pink Floyd pretention, suggesting the Cranberries are eyeing a glorious future of stadium tours and bland franchise rock.
With nothing new happening on the musical front, then, perhaps it can be expected that Dolores O'Riordan might be shovelling her creative juices into insightful lyrics. Not a chance. 'We better think about the things we say,' the waifish warbler begins hopefully on Time Is Ticking Out, before ignoring her own advice with lines like 'Looks like we've screwed up the ozone layer/I wonder if the politicians care' and 'What about Chernobyl?', ending it all with an irony-free 'la la la'.
The band doesn't do itself any favours by winding things up with a cover of In The Ghetto - a timeless piece of songwriting that only serves to underline the rest of the album's shortcomings.