Canter Bridge

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Delores O’Riordian has a voice like no other, perfectly suited for the upfront Irish anger of this 1994 album. Single digits ahead of the St Valentine’s Day accord and its imperfect afterlife, O’Riordian and the Cranberries lament–this *is* the dominant tone–the things that are wrong with families, fathers, lovers, and the hatred that has made ‘the Troubles’ so linkable an expression with Northern Ireland.

The front lady’s severe, alto and usually unaccompanied voice drives each song forward with self-propelled force. You either love it or hate it. Not too many simply liked this album. It was one of those musical offerings that invoked strong response from across the spectrum of listeners.

I mark the album’s release date (1994) as the year I arrived in England to study. It represented one of my first moments of exposure to European (sort of ) pop music and the edge that often distinguishes it from its cross-Atlantic counterpart. A decade and change later, I can still remember where I was when I first heard several of these tracks.

The album is well constructed. The first track begins with O’Riordian’s famous a capella ‘Doo …. doo doo doo …. Doo … doo doo doo’ entrance to the spooky ‘Ode to my Family.The CD ends with the eerily gripping organ intro to ‘No Need to Argue’. In between comes a lineup of tunes that together comprise the kind of album that is often called ‘honest’, a descriptor that often means the postponement of the kind of self restraint that works in the rest of life but is not always the domain of artistry in its awful naked truth.

If this kind of transparency is a virtue–and arguably it is–then No Need to Argue represents a kind of moral pinnacle. What carries the attempt through a dozen and one titles is O’Riordian’s ‘I’m-not-done-yet’ persistence in emoting with that beguilingly odd voice and the Irish turn of a syllable that drives it from theme to theme. She is, after all, the only vocal thing the Cranberries have got goin’. She makes the most of a monopoly.

Meanwhile, the boys in back lay down a pretty spare groove that showcases the singer up front. This is true both on the raucous/metal end of the continuum (‘Zombie’) as on the violin-accompanied love song side (‘Dreaming my Dreams’).

All this considered, I place NO NEED TO ARGUE in the category of those landmarks albums that don’t necessarily wear well by keening to the common core of changing musical tastes. Rather, it comes as an archived witness to a new and slightly revolutionary sound that gripped us momentarily and for a year or two in the mid-1990s. That’s no small feat.