After delivering three top-notch albums straight out of the gate—1980’s epic self-titled debut, 1981’s slightly less sure-footed Pretenders II, and 1984’s miraculous from-the-ashes rebirth Learning To Crawl—The Pretenders foundered through the decade that followed.
The group’s first album without a single original member other than singer-songwriter-frontwoman Chrissie Hynde, 1986’s Get Close, featured smoother sonics and spottier songwriting, and 1990’s Packed!–a Hynde solo album in all but name—continued the band’s earthward trajectory. It wasn’t until Last Of The Independents, another four years later, that the group showed real signs of the old fire and spark. This isn’t a comeback album, since Hynde never went anywhere, but it was easily the strongest Pretenders showing in the decade following Learning To Crawl.
Oddly enough, Hynde pulled this feat off while employing three separate producers and a half-dozen session players behind herself and guitarist Adam Seymour. By the end of the recording process things had apparently settled out, though, as the liner notes credit the band lineup as Hynde, Seymour, Andy Hobson on bass, and returning founding drummer Martin Chambers, despite Chambers only playing on four tracks and Hobson on three. Regardless, this official lineup would hold for two more albums after this one. 
One of the keys seems to have been Hynde’s writing sessions with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg, who co-write five of the strongest tunes here. Two of these are front-loaded: the edgy, charismatic “Hollywood Perfume,” with squirrelly distortion and effects fresh from Achtung Baby-era U2, and “Night In My Veins,” the clearest callback to former glories, full of ringing hooks, pushing rhythms and gorgeous vocal melodies. “Money Talk” follows, a chunky mid-tempo number with Chambers at the kit and more Edge-y distortion on Seymour’s leads as Hynde sings “I’ve been gifted with the thing that you want.”
“977” is the less successful of a pair of piano ballads co-written by Hynde-Kelly-Steinberg. “I’ll Stand By You,” by contrast, is a standout, a stately, anthemic pledge of loyalty and support to a troubled loved one—maybe a bit mainstream and formulaic by Pretenders standards, but delivered with genuine power and pathos by Hynde and company. It reached #16 and has been covered by the likes of Girls Aloud, Carrie Underwood and Shakira.
In between and following “I’ll Stand By You” lands a passel of middling tracks that verge on filler: the shimmery, mid-tempo “Revolution,” “All My Dreams” and “Every Mother's Son”; the dark, angry, overlong “I’m A Mother”; and the melancholy, abbreviated “Tequila.”
“Rebel Rock Me” brings back the edge and attitude, though Hynde’s clipped, exaggerated vocals verge on self-parody. The final Hynde-Kelly-Steinberg co-write, “Love Colours,” fares better, a ringing number with pulsing energy and smartly-crafted breakdowns. Hynde and company finish off with a curveball—a gently sincere cover of the Dylan classic “Forever Young” that’s pretty, but feels a bit out of place.
While it doesn’t scale the musical heights of the group’s early days, Last Of The Independents accomplished what it was clearly meant to, delivering hard evidence that Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders had more to say and plenty left in the tank. Long may they run.