No Doubt’s highly anticipated new single ‘Settle Down’ released

It’s been a long time coming, but No Doubt, the multi-platinum band that harnessed the third-wave ska revolution of the 1990s to create a run of chart-topping gems, released its first new music in over a decade on Monday. Called “Settle Down,” the song is from the band’s long-awaited studio follow-up to 2001’s “Rock Steady,” titled “Push and Shove,” which comes out Sept. 25.

Why wait any longer? Here’s a sample of it:

Much has happened since Gwen Stefani, Tony Canal, Adrian Young and Tom Dumont last dropped new music. Stefani announced her decision to make solo music in 2004 and has gone on to have a successful career while raising her two sons with singer Gavin Rossdale.

The best of these singles, the banging “Hollaback Girl” from 2005, became a bona fide pop smash, leading many fans to worry that Stefani was putting No Doubt to bed for good. But she and her bandmates assured fans that No Doubt remained an ongoing musical concern and confirmed that with a successful 2009 tour that carried the band to 50 North American cities.

Which brings us to “Settle Down,” the first single from “Push and Shove”: It’s totally hot. A big, banging track that harnesses global rhythms courtesy of producer Diplo (best known for his work with M.I.A., Major Lazer and Beyonce), it shows No Doubt following a path they’ve traversed their entire career: tapping into Latin and Caribbean-tinged beats, merging them with American pop and rock music, and accenting them with that No Doubt-ian accent.

It’s a song made for summer in the Southland: big beats designed to pop out of sunroofs and rolled-down windows, to rumble the nuts and bolts of Impalas across Orange County and down Hollywood Boulevard.

Welcome back, indeed.

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