REVIEW: No Doubt, Return of Saturn (Interscope)
- Niles Baranowski
Gwen Stefani of No Doubt is on the cusp of her fourth decade and seems to be feeling her age. While Return of Saturn does have a few moments of uptempo abandon, it is a maturation of the awkward, confused sort that only aging pop bands undergo (see the most recent records by Pulp, Kenickie and Supergrass). It's definitely not as brassy as Tragic Kingdom and its lyrics tend to swing towards the docile, or at least the domestic. There's no misinterpreting a song title like "Marry Me" or lyrics such as "I always thought I'd be a mom." Even when she's back to her single girl life, there's still a note of obsession and jealousy to these lyrics, pining for exes or staring down the competition.
Return of Saturn starts out on a typically new wave note with "Ex-Girlfriend," which treats dejection as a foregone conclusion and features lite-rap breaks that make it clear Stefani's been listening to a lot of Blondie recently. After this bustling opening salvo, though, the album mostly settles into a reverie of mid-tempo ballads and starry-eyed sighs. As catchy as it is, there's something unsettling about hearing No Doubt do a song as slickly sappy as "Simple Kind of Life," where Stefani's voice never hits the squeaky peaks of emotion that were her past trademark. Without these trademark tics, a song like "Life" could be almost any female fronted band gunning for pop radio.
This loss of individuality isn't helped by the presence of producer Glen Ballard, who goes to great lengths to tone down the band's previously over-the-top antics. There are even moments when he is apparently trying to make the band into another Alanis. He helps to clean up the panoramic weepers but he seems unwilling to let the band loose. The only truly rapturous, off-the-hook moment here is "New," produced by Jerry Harrison, formerly of the Talking Heads. On this truly dizzying new-waver, Stefani longs to cling to the fresh first moments of a relationship even as they slip through her fingers. The synths dance jerkily (one of the last vestiges of ska here, incidentally) while her voice gets more and more enveloped by longing. In a moment like this, it's easy to believe she's a DIY diva.
"I find myself choking on all my contradictions," Stefani admits at one point and Saturn is chock full of them. For example, it's the songs where her lyricism seems shakiest and creepily co-dependent that the music feels most confident. "Bathwater" and "Marry Me" are both tough to listen to without squirming (the former features Stefani frequenting an ex-lover's tub out of nostalgia) but it helps that the former washes in a bouncy cabaret vamp and the latter is linked to a slight, reggae-tinged pulse. "Six Feet Under" sounds lively with its Orange County three-chord crunch until you realize that the band has gone massively existential, questioning life, death, the pill and any other Big Issue they can fit into a three minute pop song. Were it not so smirking and matter-of fact, it would be tedious. They manage not to seem out of their depth by keeping the music shallow and sweet as well.
The album could use a few more of these toe-tappers in the gently satirical vein of "Just a Girl" but it sure doesn't lack for prom-ready songs. The lovely, tragic "Supension without Suspense" is almost "Don't Speak" caliber and "Dark Blue" thumbs its nose elegantly at a sulky, life-damaged ex-lover (Gavin Rossdale, maybe?). "Oh, maybe I'm supposed to make you feel better," she says with a hint of sarcasm. Too often, Stefani instead elects to be a willful doormat. I know that few people really listens to No Doubt for the lyrics, but Stefani makes it hard for you avoid them. When they're as egregiously domestic as "If you lived here, you'd be home by now," it's almost impossible to turn a blind eye to the fact that she's pining for stereotypes which most women in rock struggle to get away from. The dulled tone of the album -- and the pair of identity-mining tunes -- suggest that this is Stefani as she really is. Hopefully, next time someone will tell her she's more magical in her makeup, making like Cyndi Lauper fronting the Stiff Little Fingers. As it stands, Return of Saturn offers thrills, but only intermittently.
