In The End was always going to be a tough listen; an album finished posthumously after lead singer Dolores O’Riordan’s tragic death in January 2018, this was destined to be part eulogy and part resurrection. However, when you listen to the obviously lovingly crafted album you pick up on a resigned sadness in the lyrics that rings, in hindsight, like a warning bell.

The album is a selection of soft and aching laments to loss and regret and a seeping hopelessness shrouded in self-medication. The band has done a stellar job of embracing the sadness of the material, as if to give themselves and the rest of us a place to put the grief about O’Riordan’s pain and how it ultimately got the best of her.

Songs like the anguished “Lost” and “Summer Song” speak openly about the fleeting reality of life’s elements, while “The Pressure” and “Got It” play with the notions of coping and what we tell ourselves in order to do so. And “Catch Me If You Can” is a full tilt cry for help. By the time the last strum closes out the title track at the end of the album, you feel goodbye happen whether you are ready or not. Fitting.

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