Pretenders – Alone review: ‘a loose sound’

With that title, black-and-white photo of Chrissie Hynde on the sleeve and a personnel list that doesn’t include founding drummer Martin Chambers, it isn’t obvious what makes this the first Pretenders album in eight years and not another solo album to sit beside Hynde’s 2014 release, Stockholm.

This is a full band project, anyway, but it’s Nashville producer Dan Auerbach’s band.

Songs such as the energetic Gotta Wait and the soul groove Never Be Together have a rich, swampy feel to file next to Auerbach’s Black Keys albums.

It’s a loose sound that suits Hynde’s familiar, slurred vocals.

She’s most fun when she talks at speed on the title track: “I’m at my best and where I belong.” It’s hard to argue.

(BMG)