The Pretenders

Alone

Chrissie Hynde’s latest tales of love and (self) loathing.

Alone began as a Chrissie Hynde solo album, until her producer, Black Key Dan Auerbach, suggested it sounded like her old band. It does. The ragged title track is a hymn to solitude that echoes vintage Pretenders songs such as Message Of Love and The Phone Call. Overall, though, Alone plays like the soundtrack to Hynde’s self-lacerating memoir, Reckless: its composer switching from bruised vulnerability to sounding like she’s going to punch someone’s lights out, including her own. I Hate Myself is painfully candid and The Man You Are a blunt open letter to prospective lovers. Auerbach’s fingerprints are all over the glampunk stomp Gotta Wait. But the pop nous is still there, on the Amanda Ghost co-write Let’s Get Lost and the regal ballad Death Is Not Enough. Even if it’s not quite the Pretenders, it’s good to have Chrissie Hynde back.