The Cranberries in The End

In the months following the unexpected passing of Dolores O'Riordan, the surviving members of the Cranberries decided to complete the album they had been recording together before her accidental death in January 2018. The resulting eighth and final effort, In the End, served as both a goodbye to their inimitable vocalist and the band itself. Along with longtime producer Stephen Street, Fergal Lawler and Mike and Noel Hogan returned the group's sound to the '90s, evoking the spirits of 1994's No Need to Argue and 1996's To the Faithful Departed. Elegiac and bittersweet, In the End is a heavy listen, haunted by the finality of mortality and unrealized potential.

In the End is the eighth and final studio album by the Irish alternative rock band The Cranberries, set to be released 26 April 2019 from BMG. It is the band’s first release since the death of singer Dolores O'Riordan, who died of alcohol poisoning on 15 January 2018, though her vocals are featured posthumously. The surviving instrumentalists pieced together her demos with in-studio recordings over the course of the subsequent year and worked with long-time producer Stephen Street to finalize the album. Critical reception has been positive.

The story of the Cranberries is one of dogged survival. Debuting with a maiden release that everybody seemed to rate as a portent of great things, the band suffered not only a "difficult" second album but also an absolute stinker of a third one, as the bandmembers strove desperately – too desperately – to live up to their reputation for sensitivity and thoughtfulness, and completely lost sight of their true virtues in the process. Internecine squabbling, health problems, and general disaffection all took further toll, so much so that, as the band prepared to release its fourth album, 1999's Bury the Hatchet, many observers were shocked to learn that the band even existed any longer, let alone was capable of actually making a new record – especially one that was as good as Bury the Hatchet turned out to be. Filmed at the Paris Omnisport de Bercy on December 9, 1999, toward the end of that album's accompanying tour, Beneath the Skin captures the full 84-minute concert performance, with the band ranging and, occasionally, raging through a veritable greatest-hits collection.

"Bualadh Bos" means "Clap Your Hands" in Irish, and popular Irish alternative rock band the Cranberries encourage their audiences to do just that on this collection, the group's first official live album. Bualadh Bos: The Cranberries Live features 15 songs recorded between 1994 and 1998 at concerts in the United States, Canada, Norway, and Sweden, with the group performing most of their best-known songs for enthusiastic fans. Selections include "Linger," "Zombie," "Dreams," "Sunday," "Ridiculous Thoughts," "Free to Decide," and many more.

The Cranberries‘ second album No Need to Argue has been remastered and expanded for a double CD and 2LP vinyl release in November. Originally released in 1994, the album was the band’s commercial peak, with global sales in excess of 17 million. No Need to Argue contains the single ‘Zombie’ which topped charts across Europe (although interestingly, only peaked at 14 in the UK) and was seemingly played endlessly on MTV at the time.

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").

Originally released on 12th March 1993, the album hit the No.1 spot in both the UK and Ireland and sold over 6 million copies worldwide. The four disc box set contains the album on the first CD and bonus material spread over three further discs. Of course all of those previous bonus tracks are included, but so too are unreleased early demos, a live performance from 31 July 1994 at the Féile Festival in Ireland and a series of radio sessions from 1992-1993. The box includes a poster and four postcards.

The Cranberries‘ second album No Need to Argue has been remastered and expanded for a double CD and 2LP vinyl release in November. Originally released in 1994, the album was the band’s commercial peak, with global sales in excess of 17 million. No Need to Argue contains the single ‘Zombie’ which topped charts across Europe (although interestingly, only peaked at 14 in the UK) and was seemingly played endlessly on MTV at the time. The two-CD deluxe features, on the first disc, a 2020 remaster of the album (“from the original tapes”), three B-sides (‘Away’, ‘I Don’t Need’ and ‘So Cold In Ireland’), a previously unreleased song ‘Yesterday’s Gone’ (which was recorded unplugged for MTV in New York in 1995), a cover of the Carpenters’ ‘(They Long To Be) Close to You’ and a remix of ‘Zombie’. The second CD in this package features nine unreleased demos and eight live tracks.