Wake Up and Smell the Coffee [Bonus Tracks]

Barnes & Noble

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. Bill Crandall

All Music Guide

The second half of the '90s was difficult for the Cranberries, not just because of changing fashions, but because the group embraced both a social consciousness and a prog rock infatuation, crystallized by the Storm Thorgerson cover of Bury the Hatchet. Thorgerson has been retained for their fifth effort, Wake Up and Smell the Coffee, but the group has hardly pursued the indulgent tendencies of their previous collaboration with him -- instead, they've re-teamed with producer Stephen Street and come up with an album that's as reminiscent of their debut as anything they've done since. So, even if it's wrapped in new clothing, this is essentially a return to basics, and it's a welcome one, since it's melodic, stately, and somber -- perhaps not with the post-Sundays grace of "Linger," but with a dogged sense of decorum that keeps not just the group's musical excesses in check, but also O'Riordan's political polemics (although she still sneaks in cringe-inducing lines like "Looks like we've screwed up the ozone layer/I wonder if the politicians care"). This doesn't really result in a record that will restore the Cranberries to the status they enjoyed in the early '90s -- after all, there's nothing as undeniable as "Linger," "Dreams," or even "Zombie" -- but it's a solid effort that feels like the true follow-up to To the Faithful Departed, which is notable in its own way. [Island's 2001 reissue featured two bonus tracks and alternate cover art.] Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Blender

Wake Up & Smell the Coffee is the set of inspired anthems they needed to deliver in ’96. John Aizlewood