POP/ROCK

Gwen Stefani, "This Is What the Truth Feels Like" (Interscope)

Stefani should have called her new album "Silver Lining." It was only a year ago that she was struggling. Her 13-year marriage to rocker Gavin Rossdale had ended in divorce and she was experiencing writer's block — the main reason it's been a decade since her last solo album.

But considering how well this album turned out and her seemingly happy relationship with her fellow coach on "The Voice," Blake Shelton, it may have all been for the best. "This Is" is a return to form, back to the fearless, boundary-pushing pop days of her bestselling "Love. Angel. Music. Baby." Stefani's mix of trap beats and lush strings on the cool "Red Flag" shows off her inventiveness, while her collaboration with Fetty Wap on "Asking 4 It" strikes at the heart of pop radio.

Of course, the real focus here is on Stefani's raw revelations about her private life — both the good and bad. She captures the aftermath of her divorce on the wrenching ballad "Used to Love You," but regains her self-esteem by the end. She giddily sings about her surprise relationship with Shelton on the sunny "Make Me Like You." And while "Me Without You" isn't quite "Don't Speak," the kiss-off ballad puts things in perspective. "Now I'm me without you," she declares. "And things about to get real good." Truth.

Glenn Gamboa, Newsday

Iggy Pop, "Post Pop Depression" (Loma Vista)

“Post Pop Depression.” by Iggy Pop.

On what he has hinted will be his final album, Pop looks back on an up-and-down life with a mix of melancholy and anger, regret and humor, the near-casualty who somehow kept himself afloat.

Pop served as David Bowie's muse in many ways at the start of his infamous Berlin period. Now with Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme in the Bowie role as producer and co-conspirator, "Post Pop Depression" picks up on that thread. For all of Pop's well-earned reputation as a bare-chested banshee in concert, he has an expressive, even sonorous baritone voice, and a pithiness as a lyricist. His words brim with battle-scarred imagery and humor.

Over the pulsating shimmer and spidery guitars of "Gardenia," he slithers across the contours of the female form in a song that oozes lust. But right next to sex, there is a vision of death in the apocalyptic "American Valhalla."

Self-reflection isn't something for which Pop is celebrated, but it underpins several songs. "Sunday" evokes a man wriggling free of a straitjacket in search of emancipation. "Vulture," a flamenco-spaghetti Western, and "German Days" turn Pop into a neo-operatic crooner. It doesn't always work, but it also underlines Pop's refusal to be boxed in by expectations of what he should be. His unexpected tenderness on "Chocolate Drops" neatly balances the ferocious finale "Paraguay." "I wanna be your basic clod who made good," he sings, "and went away while he could."

greg kot, Chicago Tribune

new releases

• Zayn, "Mind of Mine"

• Bob Mould, "Patch the Sky"

• Joy Formidable, "Hitch"

• K Michelle, "More Issues Than Vogue"

• Anthony Hamilton, "What I'm Feelin' "

• American Head Charge, "Tango Umbrella"