Looking Inward, Rocking Outward

No Doubt? Try all doubt.

In its new album, “Return of Saturn,” this hugely popular rock band has gone introspective, packing the mainly mid-tempo tunes with lyrics exploring guilt, rejection, jealousy, deception and death. A prominent motif is a yearning for the life of simplicity and convention that’s been sacrificed for stardom.

Singer Gwen Stefani’s lyrics aren’t always the most graceful and incisive, but this probing self-analysis is refreshing, and maybe even brave, for a band with a lighthearted and party-minded image.

So how did these new concerns come across on Friday at the Universal Amphitheatre, where No Doubt kicked off its return to the spotlight? Basically, they didn’t.

Sure, the quartet and its two supplemental musicians played plenty of songs from “Saturn,” but the band pretty much mowed down any nuance those songs contained. This show was so intensively high-energy that it never allowed them room to breathe.

This rift between form and content diminished the blood and sweat that went into the new songs, and again made it hard to take No Doubt seriously--even as the musicians’ exaggerated eagerness to please made them hard to resist for a couple of hours.

Cavorting on a set that suggested white shag carpet and marshmallow furniture, Stefani was a cartwheeling, high-stepping, wisecracking, speaker-climbing dynamo, alternately engaging and shrill as she loudly commanded the proceedings as both ditsy diva and good-natured rock goddess.

No Doubt’s long road to stardom began in the Orange County and L.A. ska movement, and the show often raced along at that fast, Jamaican clip. Guitarist Tim Dumont, bassist Tony Kanal and drummer Adrian Young also have a fondness for such ‘80s new wave signatures as staccato guitar lines, jumpy, frantic beats and a cartoon tone.

The new songs broadened things significantly, adding a classic-rock richness that was Kinks and Beatles by way of the Pretenders. The band has a knack for melody and hooks, and the music’s drive kept Stefani’s quavery voice honest. The show had the energy rush you’d feel when the doors burst open at the final bell on the last day of school, leaving Stefani little room to indulge in the mannered yelps and squeals she’s prone to.

But it also left little room for vulnerability and directness. It was the kind of large-scale rock rally that dazzles on the surface, but Stefani’s theatrical personas kept her from digging deeper. A concert doesn’t have to be a somber therapy session, but when the spectacle runs roughshod over the material, you have to wonder about an act’s priorities.

If they’re willing to challenge their fans with the record, then No Doubt should have the courage of their artistic convictions to do it on stage too.

It would be bracing to see someone who can play the audience with Stefani’s ease and authority drop the posturing and forge a real bond. She might not have it in her to be a Chrissie Hynde, but she doesn’t have settle for Dale Bozzio.

No Doubt plays Aug. 5 at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, 8808 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine, 8 p.m. $25. (949) 855-2863.