History has a funny way of proving rock writers right. Take the case of Dolores O’Riordan. She released an album this week, “No Baggage,” and was supposed to tour America this month.

The advance buzz on the album was anemic, so the tour was pushed back a month so that she could reunite the original members of the Cranberries in an attempt to gain momentum again.

The Cranberries have announced that they will reform for the first time in nearly seven years for a live tour.

“I’ve decided to reunite with my former band members and we will be writing new songs and performing tracks off my new album as well as our greatest hits during the shows. I'd love to see you out there,” O’Riordan stated on her website.

Guitarist and co-songwriter Noel Hogan offered, “Over the last few years, each member of the band has had time to work on different projects and learn so much from their experience. Now the time is right for the Cranberries to bring all of this together and move forward.”

Apart from U2, I can’t think of an Irish band more successful then the Cranberries. O'Riordan, Noel Hogan, Mike Hogan, and Fergal Lawler were four young Limerick kids when their debut album “Everybody Else Is Doing It,” hit number one in Britain.

It hinted at a one hit wonder until the follow-up “No Need to Argue” cemented the group’s popularity via such monster tracks as “Zombie,” “Ridiculous Thoughts,” and “Ode to My Family,” ultimately being certified seven times platinum in the U.S. and five times platinum in Europe (hitting number one in Germany, Austria, and Australia, and number two in the U.K.)

The Cranberries went on to have four top 20 Billboard albums, eight hit singles and worldwide sales of over 40 million records.

This reunion has been in the works for a while and, unlike Oasis, there didn’t seem to be any animosity behind the band’s hiatus. In January, O’Riordan played a set at Dublin’s Trinity College with the Hogan brothers to commemorate her being made an honorary patron of Trinity’s Philosophical Society. The performance was the first time the band members had seen each other since 2003.

Never officially broken up, the band instead has been on hiatus, and being in the same room and playing music together for the first time made them realize how much they had missed each other.

“We got together socially and it was really great because we joked about the grey hair that we all had and we whipped out pictures of all of our kids,” Dolores says on a lengthy five-part interview on her website.

“None of us fell out. I am always in touch with Noel and Mike joined us for an acoustic set as well.”

To say that O’Riordan can’t make great music without the Cranberries is a mistake, as the great songs on “No Baggage” prove. Getting someone to listen to it, unfortunately, requires a colossal media stunt like this, and that is a shame.

The disc has everything that made the Cranberries such a great band -- the instantly infectious chorus and melodies combined with the emotional caterwaul vocal that touches a broad emotional spectrum has not lost an ounce of its potency.

The new single, “The Journey,” is an exuberant rocker brimming with hope as Dolores belts out the chorus, “This is your life, this is your moment.”

It’s the type of stirring track you could imagine being played in one of those athlete profiles that they air in the middle of NBC’s Olympic coverage. If Michael Phelps plays this in his iPod he is sure to get more gold!

“Switch Off the Moment” is another track with a great bassline that provides another example of the light, hopeful side that O’Riordan reveals, which is in stark contrast to the aggression we’ve heard in the past on tracks like “Salvation” and “Zombie.”

That’s not to say the road to peace and happiness that she is clearly on did not come without some pain. “You might scream, you might shout, trying to suss it out,” she sings on “Be Careful,” another infectious rocker.

“I had a fear of being rejected creatively but the fear I had in myself of not having experience outside of the band,” she says.

“I now see my life from many different perspectives, and when you drop those fears you end up having a lot more fun. I probably haven’t worn my heart on my sleeve like this since the second Cranberries album (1994’s “No Need to Argue”).

“It’s at times very confessional and dealing with my true emotions. Everyone, through their experiences or their background, has had terrible moments where they think they can’t handle it. With this record I’m trying to show that, no matter how bad things may seem, it’s not really that bad in the big picture.”

Some of this new optimism is no doubt generated from maturity and parenting. 

“When you have kids, they are a piece of you and you get to see the world through their eyes,” she says. “Before kids, I only saw things through my eyes and nothing else. When you have kids, they bring you back to a time when you are eight years old again and you don’t put so much pressure on yourself anymore.”

“No Baggage” is not only a musical appetizer before the Cranberries reach our shores in November, it is quite simply a great album. In fact, if she didn’t have the baggage of the Cranberries, I wonder if “No Baggage” would have reached a broader audience on its own considerable merits.  If the Cranberries do record again, they will have a tough time topping this music.