You have to feel slightly sorry for Gavin Rossdale, who was arguably more famous than his girlfriend Gwen Stefani when they got together, in America at least. Since then, his profile has gone steadily downhill while hers has never been higher thanks to her stunning solo album. With Bush having split up (he says they are 'on ice'), can he reverse his personal fortunes with new band Institute and their debut album Distort Yourself?

The first thing you notice is that it still sounds a bit like Bush, which is probably unsurprising as Rossdale was very much the heart and soul of that band and his gravelly voice couldn't really sound like anything else.

Opener and lead single Bullet-Proof Skin is probably the most like his old band, but perhaps with a renewed vigour that was missing from their later work, but that made Sixteen Stone such an impressive debut over a decade ago.

When Animals Attack shows slightly more of an influence from producer Page Hamilton (himself formerly of seminal nu-metal crew Helmet) with a fast, heavy edge backing up Rossdale's trademark vocals, while Come On Over is a strange mix of heavy riffing and a spacey chorus, and could easily be a future single.

Information Age is probably the most Helmet-like of the tracks, with a discordant edge to the verses, but Rossdale still grabs it back into grunge-pop for the chorus. Bizarrely, Wasteland starts with a Joy Division bassline before building up into another epic tune, and a pattern begins to emerge on Distort Yourself.

Again, Boom Box finds Rossdale experimenting slightly on the verses with a low-key build-up, but exploding into action again for the chorus. While you can't fault his ability to come up with these catchy and undoubtedly anthemic choruses, it actually does start to grate a little bit and few of the songs really stand out from the rest of the album.

Of course, such problems certainly would have been welcomed on Bush's troublesome and almost chorus-free second album Razorblade Suitcase, but it is surely a little late to pick up where Sixteen Stone left off. Bush fans will certainly enjoy Institute, possibly more than any Rossdale record in the last ten years, but this certainly doesn't have the crossover appeal of his wife's music.