No Doubt - Push and Shove

Okay, so, lacklustre and frighteningly poor performances on the UK television shows The X Factor and The Jonathan Ross Show aside, the news that No Doubt had finally gotten around to a proper comeback album - after the teasing and brilliant cover of Adam and the Ants' Stand and Deliver back in 2009 - was just about one of the few legitimate buzzes I've become involved with. The two Gwen Stefani solo albums, as well as her guest spots on some great (Let Me Blow Ya Mind) and some...eh (Can I Have it Like That) singles, were a rough little endurance test of obnoxiousness and fine pop songs. She nailed some greats, too - What You Waiting For?, Cool and Early Winter were all necessary reminders that Stefani wasn't actually that annoying (since Wind it Up, Hollaback Girl and Rich Girl seemed desperate to persuade us she was).

A band now in their 40s, their heyday is worryingly long ago. But what a heyday it was, right? I don't think I've ever met anyone that doesn't love at least one No Doubt single, whether it's the cutesy breakup ballad Don't Speak or the all-guns-blazing pop smashes Just a Girl or their cover of Talk Talk's It's My Life, they've proven themselves to just about every demographic. Their bow-out in 2001 was at least an improvement on the awkward and disjointed Return to Saturn, so maybe they've retained a little greatness in this past decade.

The two aforementioned poor performances come first on Push and Shove and, for the most part, on record they sound quite excellent. Maybe they're just bad performers now. In the days since their last material, reggae and dancehall have been taken down thousands of detours and paths by the likes of Santigold in the pop world, and 'Settle Down' at first felt like a mix of that and that Paris Hilton single, Stars are Blind. Which was obviously brilliant. Don't even mean that ironically. RETURNING to the matter at hand: 'Settle Down' is a pretty nice comeback, and has a lovely chorus which doesn't quite match up to their usual brilliant choruses (but then, what does?) but it'll do, if only for the great "I'mma rough and tough - nothing gonna knock this girl down" refrain. This is all followed by The X Factor's fiasco 'Looking Hot', which, when layered with the harp-synths and polished drumming, actually resembles something listenable. "Do you think this hits the spot?" Stefani teases, over what could quite feasibly have slotted onto The Sweet Escape. In fact for the entirety of the album we're presented with chorus after chorus that're entirely promising: 'One More Summer' is a strictly understated romantic affair ("you're my weakness"), though, and revives that whole Don't Speak theme about the band.

The band team up with the increasingly-everywhere Major Lazer for their title track, which feels like the first attempt by the band this decade to really seize the listener's attention. Around five different sections meld and jar with each other with varying appeal: the guest verse from Busy Signal being one collaboration I'd like to see much more of. There're more new wave influences and sounds than reggae or ska, on Push and Shove, though. 'Easy' feels halfway between a Giorgio Moroder wind-down and an a-ha drivetime pleasantry. Their opening squelchy-synth of Hey Baby makes a brief cameo on 'Gravity', one of the album's more 2000s-era No Doubt reminders, and the track finishes with an air of David Guetta dance-pop (of the rarely good kind, not the abundantly shit kind, thank you). It gets only more synthesised from here: 'Undercover' features some clumsy disguise/difficulty-to-read-a-partner metaphors and it's not exactly captivating. They deliver their usual sadface ballads, too: 'Undone' and 'Dreaming the Same Dream' are pitched with all the usual Hollywood soundtrack hallmarks, and lyrics lifted straight out of a teenager's diary. Vocally, Stefani is still able to hold her own, but is a touch too shrill at times.

Slotted between those two ballads are 'Sparkle', which worryingly sings "never ever gonna be the same" as if some vicious and horrible reminder of their relative commercial underperformance (but more likely a lyric of love), and 'Heaven', the album's vaguely-sexual, vaguely-nonsense pop moment. Neither are particular highlights, but the latter ballad ('Dreaming the Same Dream') at least shows us the door with a nice little courtsey.

At times it feels like the band just reconvened and said to each other: "right, business as usual". To some that'll disappoint, because Rock Steady marked a shift away from the sounds and genres that they took off with. This, coupled with a much poppier, dancier record than even their 2001 album, will divide listeners and it's pretty fair that they'll get mixed reviews for this. For me, however, it's got more than a fair share of great tunes and pop songs, and although I'd love to see more modern experiments like the title track (by far and away the best song here), I could quite happily listen to this album again and again.

Rating: 7.5/10
Highlights: Push and Shove, Gravity, Easy, Settle Down, Looking Hot
Avoid: Undercover, Undone, Sparkle

Artwork Watch: Who let a twelve year-old loose with the webcam edit features?
COMEBACK FACTOR: 7/10. Marked down a peg or two for those performances. Shudder.
Up next: Mumford & Sons