Dolores Cranberry teams up with Smiths bassist Andy Rourke and New York producer and DJ, Olé Koretsky for sadly insipid album
If there was ever a band avowedly and painfully in thrall to The Smiths it was The Cranberries. The Limerick band’s debut album - produced by Stephen Street - was all wintry jangle and crestfallen lyrics.
That was, of course, before they rotted from pure indie feyness into strident bombast. Here, Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberries teams up with Smiths’ bassist Andy Rourke and little-known New York songwriter, producer and songwriter Olé Koretsky for D.A.R.K. (geddit!??).
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However, it's another adored Manchester band they sound the most like. New Order, circa 2002. Rourke’s nimble bass playing is front and centre, Koretsky's dead-eyed vocals may come across like Bernard Sumner with a hangover but they are strangely hypnotising, and Dolores’ plaintive voice can still go from waifish whisper to banshee keen at the drop of a hi-hat.
Essentially, Science Agrees is Toytown techno welded onto formulaic indie guitar and it is almost wholly un-involving. Dolores’ vocal on Chynamite will bring back the early, innocence of Cranberries days and High Fashion has a certain clunky 1982 charm but the watery likes of Gunfight and Steal You Away may leave you, well, in the dark. D.O.A., anyone?
Alan Corr @corralan
