No Doubt, Return of Saturn

No Doubt are an interesting conundrum of a band. They slip so neatly into the crack between what mature, intelligent music fans can enjoy, and what teenyboppers blare in their bedrooms every afternoon after school. Pop snobs tend to glare down their nose at the band, while your average mainstream music fans embrace their energetic tunes without reservation.

Part of the reason for that is the curse of the beautiful female lead singer. Gwen Stefani's considerable charisma is difficult for both segments of music fans to swallow. More experienced (read: jaded) pop music fans might regard Gwen Stefani as little more than a gorgeous centerpiece positioned to sell records, and in some sense, she is. Teenage males might only buy the record because dude, that chick is HOT, and young girls view Stefani as a nearly-infallible role model, gaining inspiration from her vagina-to-the-walls approach to her art. (For further research on this key topic, consult the career trajectories of Blondie and Garbage.)

Gwen Stefani is all these things, and more, and yet she's not even everything No Doubt is. She gets a lot of the band's press and attention--she's earned herself a few webpages, while it's hard to imagine any similar scrutiny is paid to No Doubt's drummer, no matter how slammin' his musical chops might be. To that end, reviewers have been foaming at the mouth to bestow Stefani with the mantle of maturity, thanks to her lyrics on their new release, Return of Saturn. Fine, make her mature, it's a nice hook. What's more remarkable is the way that this industry veteran at age 29 has married her growth as a person in the four years since her last record to the high-octane No Doubt sound, and how that sound can still explode around Stefani's vocals like a pipe bomb in some record industry hack's prized Mercedes.

For the most part, all those other critics are right. There is more "maturity" in Stefani's lyrics. But these words aren't relegated to a sappy, boring ballad about the singer's longing to slap up a white picket and pop out some babies. "Simple Kind of Life" tackles most of these issues head-on, as Stefani dissects her own life decisions and the directions they've led her in, and the song tackles the listener head-on, too. It rocks--not in the self-consciously fun way that past No Doubt singles like "Spiderwebs" and "Just a Girl" have rocked, but in a harder, grinding sense. As Stefani glides her voice into the song's chorus ("And I all I wanted was the simple things/A simple kind of life"), guitarist Tom Dumont bears down hard on a crunching chord, pounding hard in time with the beat laid down by Tony Kanal's fat bass groove.

It's telling that No Doubt can make a song about seeking security sound as characteristic to their style as an up-tempo rocker about a bad break-up ("Ex-Girlfriend," the record's first single and a lunging tune full of menace and fury). It speaks volumes about their unique gifts as a band--they have moved forward, but they haven't forgotten the little details that made them great. They've confronted more "mature" topics but have integrated them alongside their usual wild rides about love gone wrong. They're growing up a little, maybe, but they haven't put away childish playthings.

You might be a teenager looking for a hot new sound, or you might be a middle-aged former punk who scoffs disdainfully at what passes for "alternative" these days. It ain't no thang--Return to Saturn belongs in your collection whatever your personal predelictions might be. It's a mature record and a childish record at the same time, and it understands you can be both and neither will suffer. It's rockin' and swayin' and so damn clever you might not be able to stand it. It's so good that you might even forgive its producer, Glen Ballard, for inflicting Alanis Morrisette onto an unsuspecting world.

Okay, so no record's that good. It's still pretty good, though.