It's been two years since the Cranberries' last album, and seven years since their last really good album. After 1996's frightfully earnest and bombastic
To the Faithful Departed and 1999's downright lackadaisical
Bury the Hatchet, 2001's appropriately named
Wake Up and Smell the Coffee marks the Irish rockers' triumphant return to form. The disc also finds the band back in the capable hands of producer and Britpop whiz Stephen Street (
the Smiths,
Blur,
Lloyd Cole), who oversaw the Cranberries' first two hit records, 1993's
Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? and 1994's
No Need to Argue. On
Wake Up, singer Dolores O'Riordan, who recently gave birth to her second child, sounds reborn herself, shifting seamlessly from gentle coos to emotive wails on undeniably radio-ready ditties like "Never Grow Old," the title track, and "This Is the Day." Propelled by Noel Hogan's biting guitar sound -- reminiscent of Street's old crony
Johnny Marr -- "This Is the Day" is easily the band's most powerful rocker since the hypnotic "Zombie." Other standouts include the piano-driven lullaby "Chocolate Brown" and the grim
toe-tapper "Time Is Ticking Out," in which O'Riordan manages to make lyrics like "What about Chernobyl?" sound pretty. Tastes may have changed since the Cranberries first became the pop/alternative flavor of choice, but
Wake Up proves they haven't lost their knack for making music that matters.
