KEY POINTS:
Herald rating: * * *
Yodelling and pop music have never been bed-buddies. Not until Gwen Stefani decided it was time to yelp of high hills and lonely goats on her Sound of Music-inspired single, Wind It Up. It's the kind of sublime absurdity we've come to expect from last year's Hollaback Girl. And this time she looks like Barbie meets Michelle Pfeiffer in Scarface.
Solo album number two certainly matches its predecessor in the bananas stakes, with Pharrell showing a return to form as the producer of the best wack'n'roll. Long-time No Doubt collaborators Tony Kanal and Nellee Hooper also do Stefani justice on the serious songs.
But unlike Love Angel Music Baby, an extension of Stefani's personality that altered the pop landscape for the best part of a year, The Sweet Escape feels like something cobbled together in the studio. That makes for as many creative gems as duds. The best is the tribal Yummy, a guaranteed club hit, in which Stefani discusses motherhood as though it is further proof of her sex appeal. U Started It is also evidence Stefani's teasing vocal can work unusually well with the Neptunes' funk-hop scramble.
But it's not all a sweet escape. Orange County Girl, another song with the lyrics "tick tock", sounds like an amateur cast-off from What You Waiting For? and the gimmicky Now That You Got It would work better for a mediocre R&B artist like Jamelia.
Strangely, for a woman who has just popped out a sprog to her dreamboat husband, (and what a cheery trio they make in the tabloids), Stefani spends a lot of time ruminating over her ex. But when it results in beautiful pop ballads like Early Winter with Keane pianist Tim Rice-Oxley - seriously, it's up there with No Doubt's Don't Speak - the inspiration doesn't matter.
You'll also find something spine-tingling about the Madonna-like 4 In the Morning with Kanal, to the 80s vibrancy of Wonderful Life, a song from Love Angel Music Baby days that doesn't deserve to be called a leftover.
Gwennabes will still find plenty to sing into a hairbrush but there's not as much to challenge the charts as the first batch. Her identity is what will sell this escape.
Verdict: Second solo album from yummy mummy not quite a hollaback
Label: Interscope
