Seigi no Tatsujin Nyotai Tsubo Saguri (2000)

Return of Saturn is an almost defiantly mature record about two things: Stefani's exploration of a troubled romance and her own romantic ideals, plus a serious attempt by the group to not only keep new wave alive, but to make that adolescent music relevant to an older audience. It's a high concept, but Return of Saturn is filled with satisfying contradictions. It's melodic, but deceptively complex; it can seem frothy, but it's never frivolous. No Doubt's desire to expand the emotional template of new wave is the perfect match for Stefani's themes – she may be writing about love, but she's not writing adolescent love songs. Fragments of her teenaged romantic fantasies remain, but she's writing as a woman in her late 20s. She's tired of being another "ex-girlfriend" – she wants to fall in love, get married, and have a family. It's a subject that's surprisingly uncommon in pop music, which would alone make Return of Saturn an interesting album. What makes it a successful one is that the band delivers an aural equivalent of Stefani's lyrical themes.

Roger Norrington's starrily cast Serenade to Music remains just as potently beautiful as it did on its initial appearance in 1997 while his clear-headed, defiantly dry-eyed conducting of the timeless Tallis Fantasia certainly offers plenty of food for thought. Nor can there be any grumbles about the startling range and fidelity of Decca's engineering throughout. It's the main item on the menu, however, which may well sharply divide opinion. Although the LPO responds in impressively clean-heeled fashion, Norrington rather fights shy of the London Symphony's breathtakingly varied range of emotions, and anyone familiar with, say, Boult's classic mono recording will surely crave far more in the way of passionate fervour and symphonic thrust.