{"id":46047,"date":"2021-01-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-04T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/hate-for-sale-2\/"},"modified":"2021-01-04T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-01-04T00:00:00","slug":"hate-for-sale-2","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/hate-for-sale-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Hate For Sale"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Pretenders were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2005, frontwoman, chief songwriter and sole constant Chrissie Hynde acknowledged that \u201cthe Pretenders have looked like a tribute band for the last 20 years<\/a>.\u201d The untimely deaths of founding members James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon in 1982-3 cast a long shadow over the band that\u2019s only been accentuated over the years by Hynde\u2019s tendency to shuffle its lineup on a regular basis, and even issue albums under the Pretenders moniker using hired crews of session musicians (e.g. 1990\u2019s Packed!<\/i> and 2016\u2019s Alone<\/i>).<\/p>\n

As a result, the first task for any Pretenders fan picking up a new album by the group is to take a breath and check to see who\u2019s in and who\u2019s out this time around. The credits on Hate For Sale<\/i> offer welcome good news, then, as Hynde is joined by three lengthy-tenured veterans of the band in guitarist James Walbourne, bassist Nick Wilkinson, and founding drummer Martin Chambers. Where Alone<\/i> felt more like a Hynde solo album, Hate For Sale<\/i> embraces with gusto that familiar Pretenders brand of New Wave-and-punk-inspired melodic rock.<\/p>\n

The kickoff title track false-starts once\u2014a playfully punky flourish\u2014before diving into a surging, thrashing rocker that proves out of the gate that Hynde has lost none of the fire and steel that has always made her one of the most compelling performers in rock. The acid lyric deconstructs an especially loathsome narcissist as Chambers pushes the tempo and Walbourne\u2014credited as co-writer with Hynde on every track here\u2014and Wilkinson light up the boards with furious energy, with Hynde wailing on harmonica between verses. Second track and lead single \u201cThe Buzz\u201d takes a gentler approach, featuring the luminous guitars and supple bounce of classic Pretenders numbers like \u201cBrass In Pocket\u201d and \u201cTalk Of The Town,\u201d supporting a lyric about an addictive, manipulative relationship.<\/p>\n

From there you get a series of \u201clooks\u201d familiar to any longtime Pretenders fan: the dark, reggae-tinged \u201cLightning Man!\u201d; the tart, thundering garage-rocker \u201cTurf Accountant Daddy\u201d; the shimmering Motown-tinged ballad \u201cYou Can\u2019t Hurt A Fool,\u201d and yearning melodic rocker \u201cMaybe Love Is In NYC.\u201d Meanwhile the stabbing pre-chorus chords of the hard-and-heavy \u201cI Didn\u2019t When To Stop\u201d carry echoes of \u201cMystery Achievement\u201d from 40 years before, culminating in a characteristically tight-but-raging guitar-harmonica solo.<\/p>\n

Not that Hynde and company don\u2019t stretch out a bit as well. \u201cJunkie Walk\u201d offers a fresh take, a simultaneously sing-songy and punky bit of dark-slam-poetry-to-a-slowed-down-Bo-Diddley-beat frothiness. \u201cDidn\u2019t Want To Be This Lonely\u201d fuel-injects a similar beat with brio and handclaps as Hynde confesses that even bad relationships can leave you full of longing when they\u2019re over. \u201cCrying In Public\u201d closes things out with what\u2019s essentially a Hynde solo track, a pretty if rather stilted piano ballad with strings filling out its spare arrangement.<\/p>\n

Final track aside, though, Hate For Sale<\/i> sounds and feels like a Pretenders album, with all the verbal ferocity and muscular musicality that implies. Up front, Hynde is as dynamic as ever, her vocals swerving, diving, swelling and crooning, shaping her voice serve the song like the master she is. It doesn\u2019t feel right to call Hate For Sale<\/i> a return to form, implying recovery from a stumble that\u2019s never happened. Rather, it feels like a revisitation of a classic sound that puts writers of a certain age back in their 18-year-old skin, bobbing our heads to an aggressive, exhilarating new take on rock and roll.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":34191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7670],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-46047","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-pretenders","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46047"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46047"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}