One thing before we proceed: it\u2019s the Pretenders because Chrissie Hynde says it is. Got it? Good.<\/p>\n
The question comes up each time Hynde shuffles the deck of players who are understandably eager to join her musical entourage; this time co-founding drummer Martin Chambers\u2014who had returned for 2020\u2019s Hate For Sale<\/i>\u2014is absent once more, though on-again off-again guitarist and songwriting partner James Walbourne is here and in fine form. Both of these facts matter, but so does this one: The Pretenders is Chrissie\u2019s show and has been for a long time.<\/p>\n
Relentless<\/i> is an album title that also feels like Hynde\u2019s personal motto; she\u2019s going to do what she needs to do\u2014make the music she feels in her gut\u2014no matter what. The results here are a bit more of a mixed bag than on 2020\u2019s commanding Hate For Sale<\/i>, but they certainly reflect Hynde\u2019s determination to keep her musical flame burning bright.<\/p>\n
The 11 tracks here are all co-written by Walbourne, who shows a knack for meeting Hynde wherever her mercurial nature takes her and helping her work ideas into a set of songs that manages to both honor the foundations of the Pretenders\u2019 distinctive sound and push its boundaries.<\/p>\n
Indeed, Hynde opens the album singing \u201cI must be going through a metamorphosis \/ Pre-senile dementia \/ or some kind of psychosis \/ I don\u2019t even care about rock and roll.\u201d The punchline works because if Hynde doesn\u2019t care about rock and roll, who even is she? Opener \u201cLosing My Sense Of Taste\u201d uses oblique references such as that title to explore the evolutionary pressures that so many experienced during COVID lockdowns, with isolation forcing us to look inward and reconstruct our own identities. Walbourne\u2019s keening, crinkly guitars have a distinctly Pretenders II<\/i> feel here, though Chambers\u2019 trademark drive is missed on the backbeat.<\/p>\n
\u201cA Love\u201d follows with another callback, this time to the luminous jangle of \u201cTalk Of The Town\u201d; it\u2019s a pretty one for sure, as opposed to the dark, dingy, intense \u201cDomestic Silence,\u201d which doesn\u2019t feel like it requires much more explanation than that title. \u201cThe Copa\u201d and \u201cThe Promise Of Love\u201d find the group settling into a mid-tempo groove, the former a poem of longing set to lilting guitar, the latter a playful number building from nightclub jazz to a bluesy crescendo, featuring Walbourne on piano, organ and mellotron. \u201cMerry Widow\u201d follows, another modestly paced number, albeit with big guitars this time.<\/p>\n
The tempo picks up again as Walbourne sounds the clarion-call riff leading off \u201cLet The Sun Come In,\u201d an easy flowing rocker with a typically pointed message. \u201cWe don\u2019t have to fade to black,\u201d declares the 72-year-old Hynde, \u201cTo live forever, that\u2019s the plan.\u201d Shifting gears, \u201cLook Away\u201d starts out acoustic, with all the focus on Hynde\u2019s voice, which is never a bad thing; it\u2019s such a distinctive instrument and she employs it with so much skill.<\/p>\n
In a less than shocking development, \u201cThis House Is On Fire\u201d offers (ahem) smoldering intensity, a Hynde specialty that she still masters. It\u2019s a captivating number that\u2019s more successful than the similarly slow-burning \u201cJust Let It Go\u201d that follows. The tempo and adrenalin both ratchet up for \u201cVainglorious\u201d a typically tart call-out of arrogance that strongly references the group\u2019s 1980 self-titled debut in its guitar tones, rhythmic drive and overall sound.<\/p>\n
And then we arrive at closer \u201cI Think About You Daily,\u201d which finds Hynde collaborating with Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, who adorns this wistful ballad with a sweeping string arrangement. Too sweeping for me, if we\u2019re being honest. Throughout her career, Hynde the performer has been tough and tender, spiky and sentimental, but never, ever maudlin. The lyric here isn\u2019t maudlin, nor is the vocal\u2026 but the string arrangement here feels overwrought to the point that the word gains relevance.<\/p>\n
Produced by David Wrench (David Byrne, Manic Street Preachers, Courtney Barnett), Relentless <\/i>offers a varied and dynamic showcase for this year\u2019s edition of Chrissie Hynde, as ever informed by her past and undaunted by her future. And if everything here didn\u2019t work quite as well for me as I might have hoped, I can at least take solace in the fact that Chrissie Hynde could hardly care less what I think. Rock on, queen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":34890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7670],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-46757","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-pretenders","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46757","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=46757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46757"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}