Bad Wolves released a version on January 19, 2018. O'Riordan had been scheduled to record vocals with the heavy metal group at the time of her death. The cover was released without her vocals as a tribute. Bad Wolves altered the lyrics, inserting a reference to drones and replacing "since 1916" with "in 2018". The band's cover peaked at #1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock songs in May 2018.
"Zombie" is a protest song by Irish rock band The Cranberries, written about the 1993 IRA bombing in Warrington, and in memory of two young victims, Johnathan Ball and Tim Parry.
The lyrics reference the Irish Easter Rising.
The Rough Guide to Rock identified the album No Need to Argue as "more of the same" as the Cranberries' debut album, except for the song "Zombie", which had an "angry grunge" sound and "aggressive" lyrics.
The Cranberries played the song on their appearance on the U.S. show Saturday Night Live in 1995 in a performance that British author Dave Thompson calls "one of the most powerful performances that the show has ever seen".