CD REVIEW: THE CRANBERRIES – Something Else

Shane | 9 October 2017 | Reply

CD REVIEW: THE CRANBERRIES – Something Else
BMG
April 2017
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
7/10

The Cranberries’ eleventh album is part Greatest Hits and part re-imagining of their biggest and best tracks, plus a few new songs for good measure.

The foursome’s career highlights here are re-recorded with lush orchestral backings by the Irish Chamber Orchestra. Often when a band strips a song back to acoustic format, it reveals the raw emotional honesty atthe heart of the track. As beautiful as these new arrangements are, they are perhaps a little TOO grandiose to allow enough of the four band members personalities and emotions to be heard.

Fans will undoubtedly revel in the epic, classical touches now leant to the instantly recognisable Linger, Dreams, Zombie, Ode To My Family and Just My Imagination.

New tracks The Glory, Rupture and Why are similarly sure to please fans, and all sit pleasantly here. Rupture, in fact, boasts the sparsest arrangement on the album, and carries more emotional weight accordingly, and leaves us wishing they’d stripped back some of the others as well.