It’s the album she always refused to record. Chrissie Hynde has finally been persuaded to make an LP without The Pretenders. Age has not mellowed her. As with Tom Petty – with or without the Heartbreakers – Hynde’s distinctive vocals and songwriting style dominate everything she touches. True, there are more latter day production embellishments and much less reliance on the familiar twin guitar attack. Still, with one or two few exceptions, Stockholm could easily pass for a Pretenders album. Opener the ‘You Or No One’, for instance, isn’t a million miles away from Pretenders’ staple ‘Kid’.
Elsewhere, the chugging, ‘Dark Sunglasses’ has the rhythmic feel of Lou Reed’s ‘Dirty Boulevard’. And the Smiths-esque textures of ‘Like In The Movies’ are classic Chrissie. There are some departures. ‘Tournique (Cynthia Ann)’ is one part classical and one part flamenco guitars over chiming keys; ‘House of Cards’, meanwhile, features contemporary dance beats and the strongest vocal on the album. Raunchiest of all is ‘Down The Wrong Way’: the guitars sound like Neil Young at his Crazy Horse distorted best, with Hynde proclaiming “I’m back on Gasoline Alley, those haunted hills are just pills gone down the wrong way”. Clearly she won’t go down without a fight.
OUT NOW.