Music review: Gavin Rossdale – ‘Wanderlust’

Gavin Rossdale

Wanderlust

Interscope

Rating: 1

Gavin Rossdale said it himself when he repeated in the opening track, “I’ve been gone too long.” The sexy post-grunge Brit has been busy doing a whole lot of nothing since his escapades leading the alternative rock pioneers Bush; he’s just been married to faux hip hopper-gone-bananas Gwen Stefani. But demonstrated in Tuesday’s release of Wanderlust, Rossdale has been “rediscovering himself” as a musician, only to find that life after the ‘90s is terribly boring.

After a full listen of Wanderlust, I realized that all my heroes are falling apart.

“The kids have gone mad,” Rossdale explains in “Forever May You Run,” or “maybe they’ve been insane all along.” The anti-climactic track exemplifies how Rossdale has clearly downgraded his abilities as a guitarist and instead provides basic scales, simplistic synth and sorry lyrics throughout the girth of the record.

Maybe it’s not the kids; maybe Rossdale has gone mad and forgotten how to make multidimensional music. Wanderlust sounds as if Rossdale has been either locked up in his Hollywood home listening to Sting or wishing that if he had another chance, he’d go the Chris Martin route. Did he forget the guitar-driven aggression he once projected into songwriting with Bush? For instance, this record has a reggae-esque track, “Future World,” which sticks out so badly from the rest of the watered-down style of Wanderlust that I actually reacted – though, I cringed. The track lives a double life as a call-and-response theatrical verse and a palm-muted, faster chorus appropriate for wearing a Hawaiian shirt.

One thing for sure is that the record as a whole is forced – overproduction using studio musicians like drummer Josh Freese (A Perfect Circle, The Vandals) provide substandard, hollow melody behind elementary “dark” lyrics. Rossdale commissioned Shirley Manson of Garbage for “The Trouble I’m In,“ though it’s likely that she forgot everything dynamic about music once the ‘90s ended, too. The way Manson’s voice is blended into Rossdale’s is soothing, but again, the song creeps dangerously close to the likes of Coldplay, further confusing the album’s comprehensive sound.

More constructively speaking, Rossdale emanates in the few times he decides to get aggro. An example of this is “If you are not with us you are against us,“ which is the heaviest track on the record.

Gavin, the chemicals between us have died. I missed your rusty vocal texture that was so pitifully imitated by the Jesus-like frontman of Nickelback. You stood right next to Nirvana’s accomplishments when you wrote Sixteen Stone, and then what? You wrote Wanderlust and served up the cheese with happy epic-rock and several down-tempo numbers that don’t reflect your aggressive id. I guess we can’t always save the best for last.

Nicole L. Browner

For fans of: Nickelback, Bob Rock, Bush

Give these tracks a listen:

“Forever May You Run“

“The Trouble I’m In“

Lyrics to “Another Night in the Hills“

Exiles and strangers

Living in danger

Hollywood faces

Could you take me to the races

She’s a diamond made of coal

Truth is nobody knows

He’s a gambler and a cheat

He got very small feet

And if there is forgiveness

I haven’t seen it

Don’t let your friends fall to pieces

Another night in the hills

Blow blow blow blow

On a buffet of bills

Blah blah blah blah

But the true work of art

Is how we got this far