The Cranberries broke up in 2002 after the release of their final album, 2001’s Wake Up and Smell the Coffee. Singer Dolores O’Riordan spent the next few years focusing on family and self, collaborating occasionally (most notably with Twin Peaks maestro Angelo Badalamenti) and slowly accumulating the material that would become her first solo album, 2007’s Are You Listening?. Time and experience have not mellowed her. Her tough, piercing tone either accentuates or punctures the musical vistas that range from sublimely calm to melodramatically turgid. The opening track, “Ordinary Day,” is unusual, as it revels in the miracle of her first child and exudes a calmness not usually associated with O’Riordan. More in character is “In the Garden” with its sound of a woman pushing herself upstream against haunting flashback imagery. “Human Nature” overdrives with a manic flute chasing O’Riordan’s increasingly agitated vocal. “Loser” uses a seductively catchy chorus to finalize into a “Die Loser Die” coda that’s smoother than its prickly sentiment.