30 years ago today: The Cranberries released 'Zombie'

Original 'Zombie' single review – published in Hot Press in 1994:

Staccato rhythms and subtle jerks and pauses in the music and the singing make this more than just business-as-usual for The Cranberries. A slow, brooding Siouxsie-like buzzing guitar melody and dirge-like bass and drums counterpoint the elliptical and impassioned vocals of Dolores O’ Riordan as she works her way through the internal psychic and external human tragedies of The Troubles we’ve O.D’d on, on this battered little island of ours. ‘Zombie’ signals a growth in confidence, as The Cranberries experiment without discarding that unique form of understatement which distinguishes Limerick’s finest from all those other practitioners of Celtic soul.

– Patrick Brennan

Lisa McGee on 'Zombie'

“The guys in the band probably won’t be too pleased about this, but my introduction aged 14 to The Cranberries was a copied tape of No Need To Argue, which was doing the rounds at my school. I’d been looking for something that felt very Irish but contemporary and they blew me away. As a kid you’re always searching for yourself in music, TV and cinema and I was like, ‘Oh, this is it! This sounds like modern Ireland.’ I remember lying outside on one of the rare sunny days Derry has in the summer and getting goosebumps listening to the music. Then I fell in love with the lyrics and, like Erin, had The Cranberries as the soundtrack to my teenage years.

“Serious rock critics were a bit sniffy about the ‘tanks…’ part of ‘Zombie’, but we totally related to its simple message of ordinary innocent people being the main victims of war. You often felt that you were forgotten in Northern Ireland and nobody cared, so Dolores singing about us was amazing."

Lisa McGee's reflections are taken from WHY CAN’T WE? The Story Of The Cranberries And Their Iconic Frontwoman Dolores O’Riordan As Told Through The Pages Of Hot Press: