Departed turned out to be where the Cranberries' best intentions finally and thoroughly tripped them up. Switching producers to Bruce Fairbairn was a troubling enough move to begin with; Stephen Street's ear for the band's dynamics was note-perfect, but Fairbairn's work with arena-rock monsters like Aerosmith meant on Departed everything was scaled up accordingly. The results may have been more commercial, but they took the identity of the band with it -- that opening song &Hollywood& sounded exactly like atypical sludgefest &Zombie& was all to be expected. O'Riordan, meanwhile, decided she was a generation's spokesperson, fully taking over the songwriting, except on a couple of cuts with Noel Hogan, penning some appropriate liner notes, and running with it. Songtitles say it all -- &War Child,& &I Just Shot John Lennon,& complete with cheesy gun shots, and perhaps most painfully obvious at the end, &Bosnia.& Then there's lead single &Salvation,& which preaches against heroin addiction in a manner worthy of afterschool specials and with about as much depth. Not that good songs can't and haven't been written on these subjects, of course, but O'Riordan, lacking a truly individual or unique take on them, is not the person to be writing them. Or singing them -- her wails and yelps now run rampant, being less voice-as-instrument as it is signature calling card to be employed throughout. There are bright points -- every so often Hogan's guitar comes through at its best, and there's the retro-'50s finger-snapping &When You're Gone& and the nicely arranged &Electric Blue.& Still, when compared to No Need and especially Everybody Departed completely suffers in comparison.