Review from CDNow
The Cranberries, one suspects, have been insufferable ever since their recent guest appearance at the Nobel Peace Prize concert (was Hole not available?), if not before.
With a recorded history divided between the fey ("Linger," etc.) and the ferocious ("Zombie"), and a brittle pixie of a lead singer, the Cranberries have always been a little much, a condition their fourth and finest record, Bury the Hatchet, will go only a small way toward alleviating.

Evenly populated by vigorous pop songs (like the almost-bouncy first single, "Promises") and airy, sweeping ballads (like the lovely closer, "Dying in the Sun"), Hatchet finds the band greatly advanced in both songwriting and playing, and Dolores O'Riordan's voice has never sounded finer, having improved in tenor and range during the band's three-year hiatus.

O'Riordan still seems to have two moods -- wistful and disapproving -- both of which are given quite a workout on the record's assorted love songs, odes to motherhood and protestations against societal evils.

However laudable anti-child abuse tracks like "Fee Fi Fo" are in theory, they only underline the Cranberries' fondness for the obvious; after all, no one thinks child abuse is good, nor has anyone had anything novel to say about it since "Luka." Only "Copycat," which bemoans pop radio's lack of diversity ("So much for the radio/The radio is sad") is truly awful, though: It bears more of a stylistic resemblance to Phoebe from Friends' "Smelly Cat" than any of the Cranberries might care to imagine.