They used to be seen as sex kittens. Now, on Doll Revolution, they look like the cast of Sex and the City. Yet 15 years after the Bangles' last album, Everything, the California power-poppers breeze back in looking and sounding as though they've been gone a mere 15 minutes. Eloquent, assured, and sensual, Doll Revolution is measured yet mesmerizing, considered yet colossal. This is one 80s comeback that really is a good idea.
So is this "doll revolution" some L.A. take on Girl Power? Or a glossy update on Riot Grrrl? Hardly. The Bangles never were ones for manifestos. Melodies are more their game, and these mostly self-penned songs display a beautifully developed sense of songcraft. "Something That You Said" is an exercise in sepia longing, while the sublime West Coast harmonies of "Stealing Rosemary" is a reminder that the quartet originally began life, 20 years prior, as Paisley Underground psychedelics named the Supersonic Bangs.
The gentle ballad "I Will Take Care of You" will have lighters aloft on the comeback tour, yet is also achingly intimate. And the yearning "Single by Choice," glancing back over a life half-done, is both a shoo-in for the soundtrack of the next Bridget Jones movie and also a knowing, experience-heavy poem that they simply couldn't have crafted the first time around. The Bangles have returned older but wiser and there is, as Doll Revolution amply demonstrates, simply no substitute for experience. --Ian Gittins
