Gavin Rossdale: Wanderlust : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

"Oh teardrop you know you make me so sad/This heartbeat could be my last," sings Gavin Rossdale on his first solo album. The former Bush frontman may share a house with the world's most manically upbeat pop singer, wife Gwen Stefani, but denominationally, he's still grunge: a dour rock dude, scowling and growling as he bears down on another B minor chord. With the help of Bob Rock (Metallica), Rossdale gives Wanderlust a slick sheen, swabbing power ballads like "Beauty in the Beast" in a Roxy Music-like keyboard gloss, and experimenting with vocoder effects on the album-ending "This Place Is on Fire." (Call him G-Pain.) But Rossdale's heart is in the grim, grandiose stuff, bellowing his pain in Vedderian rumble, and forever striving to be deep and meaningful, a goal that exceeds his gifts as a songwriter. Case in point: "Frontline," a dirge about a soldier at war that finds Rossdale intoning "poetry" like "In the arms of friendly fire/Everyone has the same desire." Get this party pooper a copy of "Hollaback Girl.