Florence Road – “Caterpillar”

The Cranberries comparison seems to obvious, but it’s unavoidable. Florence Road are an Irish band who make tender, sensitive, string-laden acoustic ballads. Virtually everything they do exists in the shadow of first-album Cranberries, the same way that first-album Cranberries existed in the shadow of the Sundays and the Smiths and Sinéad O’Connor. It cannot be helped. In any case, it’s a good thing. First-album Cranberries were great! People still love them! You could do a whole lot worse than reminding the world of first-album Cranberries.