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"Bury the Hatchet"
The Cranberries/Island Records
After breakup rumors and a new baby from lead singer Dolores O'Riordan, Irish band the Cranberries return to "Bury the Hatchet." The Cranberries, as they have on their past three CDs, do an excellent job of providing perfect little hook-filled, pop-folk songs such as "Animal Instinct," "Just My Imagination" and "You and Me." The group only fails with occasional hackneyed lyrics and attempts to juice it up on songs like the first single "Promises," which pales next to their other amped-up efforts such as "Zombie" and "Salvation." "Copycat" is the group's most interesting cut. The song attacks radio stations for only embracing hits that sound like everything else. Only thing is, "Copycat" sounds like nearly every Cranberries tune you've ever heard. Surely they're in on their own joke, right?
-- Kevin C. Johnson
"Synkronized"
Jamiroquai/Work Records
Grammy-winning U.K. band Jamiroquai, fronted by singer Jay King, forgoes its acid jazz edge for a full-out album of disco boogie on "Synkronized," its fourth CD. Don't count its disco doings against the CD, not when the sounds recall the best of that too-often unfairly dissed genre. King, as always,...