by
Gwen Stefani
- Record Label: Interscope
- Release Date: Mar 18, 2016
Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Q MagazineApr 8, 2016The over-sauced, finger-wagging Naughty might take the joyful retribution to far in the panto direction but I Will Survive update Me Without You and joyful dancefloor rebirth Rare prove that Stefani has lost none of her pop spirit. [Jun 2016, p.117]
-
Apr 4, 2016Although it's a bright and buoyant effort--with recognisable touches of ska and reggae--her new album lacks the left-field flourishes that make her special.
-
Mar 21, 2016A little more courage would not have gone amiss.
-
Mar 18, 2016Over the album’s 12 tracks, Stefani doesn’t mope once--in fact, a lot of the time she sounds like she doesn’t give a s**t. ‘Where Would I Be’ and ‘Send Me A Picture’ say it with Disney dancehall, while ‘Me Without You’ is the closest she comes to balladry, singing “I don’t need you/not a little bit” over polished trip-hop.
-
Mar 18, 2016The album has a rushed feel--a likable but low-personality version of her familiar bubble-pop solo mode, alternating between miffed breakup plaints (the Amy Winehouse tribute "Naughty") and gushy new-boyfriend songs.
-
Mar 17, 2016When she gets heavy with either beats or ballads, This Is What The Truth Feels Like slows to a crawl. Cut away these excesses--these moments of emotional bloodletting or thirsty appeals to the top of the charts--and This Is What The Truth Feels Like manages to be as fleet, giddy and charming as Gwen Stefani ever is.
-
Mar 21, 2016Stefani’s focus on the good times alternates with songs where she expresses cartoonish anger by awkwardly rapping and shouting non-sequiturs (“Naughty,” “Red Flag”), and neither mode plays to her strengths as a songwriter and signature vocalist. Her best songs are the ones in which she is audibly upset.
-
Mar 23, 2016This Is What the Truth Feels Like is half-baked in places and perhaps a little too safe in others, but it’s really, properly genuine, and if she doesn’t leave it a decade next time, Stefani might still be able to make a great pop record. It’s in there, somewhere.
-
Mar 17, 2016The pop-rock of the album’s first half is relaxed, breezy, intimate, and dull; the twitching beatscapes of its back end are tense, fiery, theatrical, and void.
-
Mar 18, 2016This Is What the Truth Feels Like lacks a cohesive style, instead focusing on narrative.
-
Mar 24, 2016Only reggae-lite skank Where Would I Be hints at Stefani’s once playful personality. But the truth is that this feels like little more than careerist chart fodder.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 148 out of 188
-
Mixed: 18 out of 188
-
Negative: 22 out of 188
-
Mar 18, 2016
-
Mar 18, 2016
-
Mar 19, 2016