Though her subsequent work often leaves me cold, O'Connor's debut is a brilliant, eclectic collection in which even the love songs, such as the gorgeous "Just Like U Said It Would B," sound fiery and raw. "Troy," one of the finest songs of the decade, is a devastating entreaty to an ex-lover she can't—or won't—shake free of. "Drink Before the War" is a passionate anti-war cry housed in a lovely ballad. "I Want Your (Hands On Me)" is a lusty little dance, catchy and about as subtle as the title would suggest. Songs such as "Jackie," "Just Call Me Joe," "Mandinka," "Never Get Old," and "Jerusalem" show an extraordinary array of subjects, styles and influences. These songs are deep and literate and often sound as if they cost O'Connor a piece of her soul to get them on record.

With this album, Sinead O'Connor combines hard-rock riffs, discordant electronics, neoclassical arrangements, funk grooves and hip-hop. These elements emphasize the full impact of her expressive and 'acrobatically' intense emotionally charged vocals that fuse Gregorian chants, African-American spirituals, Celtic ballads, middle-eastern Litanies and Laurie Anderson's and Meredith Monk's experiments on the human voice. The result is a masterpiece of an album that resembles a hallucinatory psychodrama that exudes vulnerability and loneliness.