The Pretenders ninth studio album Break Up The Concrete sounds more like music made by a bunch of rock-a-billies on a Mississippi back porch than the new album by one of Rock & Roll’s premier new wave/ post-punk pioneers. From the dreamsome steel guitar opening cadence on “Boots of Chinese Plastic”, to the weary pleading bluegrass pop of “Don’t Lose Faith In Me” it’s clear that legendary front woman Chrissie Hynde and her band set out to make an album that sounded more like the raw industrial noise of America’s rural heartland than the stiff-upper-lipped sophisticated London cool of their revered catalog.
On their first album since 2002’s Loose Screw, Chrissie and the Boys explore issues such as; re-incarnation, religion, politics and of course the daunting quest of finding and keeping true love, but like always on a Pretenders album it is Hynde’s honeyed androgynous alto, that is the albums centerpiece. Her voice, coarse yet never harsh remains in pristine form, softly rolling and roaring, cold, yet warm somehow like a mid December snowstorm.
Tracks such as the Bo Diddley inspired delta rocker “Don’t Cut Your Hair,” and the title cut finds Hynde running frantically around killer guitar riffs, stuttering and strutting with a renewed vigor; the 57-year-old rocker sounds more energized than she has in 20 years.
Overall, Breaking Up The Concrete is a welcome comeback from a group that has managed to avoid the pitfalls of most of their contemporaries by consistently making music that is both steeped in their indigenous musical vision but is agile, and perhaps intelligent enough to allow their sound enough room to grow ergo keeping their music invitingly electric, as only true Rock & Roll can be.
By John Strange
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