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Bury the Hatchet

Artist: Cranberries
Genre: Alternative
Year: 1999
Rating: 7 / 10

Three years after their last album, the Cranberries return with a cheerier, if less star-studded, effort, Bury the Hatchet. Reconvening after taking some time off for lead singer Dolores O’Riordan Burton’s recent pregnancy, the band delivers a softer, more peaceful album. Hatchet offers more of what Cranberries fans have come to love, though it lacks a true anthem like “Linger,” “Zombie,” or “Ode to My Family.” The album makes for easy listening, and requires precious little thought in the process.

“Promises,” the third track on the album, is the closest thing Hatchet has to an album-defining single. The distinction, however, is that, with the exception of the strong “Delilah,” “Promises” is not representative of the album as a whole. Those two songs, while driven and reminiscent of Cranberries albums past, are the only true rock songs. They seem a little out of place on this album, belonging more appropriately to the edgier To the Faithfully Departed. The rest of the album elicits memories of the band’s first effort, Everybody Else Is Doing It So Why Can’t We. This softer mood seems to suggest that the Cranberries have come full circle, returning to their very origins.

Despite the apparent similarities in tone between Bury the Hatchet and the group’s initial album, the more upbeat nature of the former truly sets it apart. “Just My Imagination” is about as peppy as the band can get, and invokes the same type of joy that “Sunday” arouses on Everybody Else. “Just My Imagination” is the rule, though, and not the exception that “Sunday” is. “You and Me” and “Saving Grace” clearly fall into this category, and, while they do not get one’s adrenaline flowing, they do succeed in their own way. Listening to “You and Me,” I could not help but think of “Daffodil Lament” from No Need to Argue, with its slower pace and moving conclusion.

Bury the Hatchet might not be the album for the casual fan, nor for someone exposed to the Cranberries for the first time. Yet for true Cranberries fans, it represents a mixture of the various styles the band has employed over the past decade. And for fans of the band’s first album, Bury the Hatchet delivers some of the same emotion as that breakthrough effort. Taken individually, the songs on Hatchet would have a difficult time holding their own against those of the three prior albums. Taken as one collective, however, Bury the Hatchet can stand proudly beside all the great Cranberries efforts of the past.

See Also: Concert Review

Submitted 4/29/99.