One thing before we proceed: it’s the Pretenders because Chrissie Hynde says it is. Got it? Good.
The question comes up each time Hynde shuffles the deck of players who are understandably eager to join her musical entourage; this time co-founding drummer Martin Chambers—who had returned for 2020’s Hate For Sale—is absent once more, though on-again off-again guitarist and songwriting partner James Walbourne is here and in fine form. Both of these facts matter, but so does this one: The Pretenders is Chrissie’s show and has been for a long time.
Relentless is an album title that also feels like Hynde’s personal motto; she’s going to do what she needs to do—make the music she feels in her gut—no matter what. The results here are a bit more of a mixed bag than on 2020’s commanding Hate For Sale, but they certainly reflect Hynde’s determination to keep her musical flame burning bright.
The 11 tracks here are all co-written by Walbourne, who shows a knack for meeting Hynde wherever her mercurial nature takes her and helping her work ideas into a set of songs that manages to both honor the foundations of the Pretenders’ distinctive sound and push its boundaries.
Indeed, Hynde opens the album singing “I must be going through a metamorphosis / Pre-senile dementia / or some kind of psychosis / I don’t even care about rock and roll.” The punchline works because if Hynde doesn’t care about rock and roll, who even is she? Opener “Losing My Sense Of Taste” uses oblique references such as that title to explore the evolutionary pressures that so many experienced during COVID lockdowns, with isolation forcing us to look inward and reconstruct our own identities. Walbourne’s keening, crinkly guitars have a distinctly 
Pretenders II feel here, though Chambers’ trademark drive is missed on the backbeat.
“A Love” follows with another callback, this time to the luminous jangle of “Talk Of The Town”; it’s a pretty one for sure, as opposed to the dark, dingy, intense “Domestic Silence,” which doesn’t feel like it requires much more explanation than that title. “The Copa” and “The Promise Of Love” find the group settling into a mid-tempo groove, the former a poem of longing set to lilting guitar, the latter a playful number building from nightclub jazz to a bluesy crescendo, featuring Walbourne on piano, organ and mellotron. “Merry Widow” follows, another modestly paced number, albeit with big guitars this time.
The tempo picks up again as Walbourne sounds the clarion-call riff leading off “Let The Sun Come In,” an easy flowing rocker with a typically pointed message. “We don’t have to fade to black,” declares the 72-year-old Hynde, “To live forever, that’s the plan.” Shifting gears, “Look Away” starts out acoustic, with all the focus on Hynde’s voice, which is never a bad thing; it’s such a distinctive instrument and she employs it with so much skill.
In a less than shocking development, “This House Is On Fire” offers (ahem) smoldering intensity, a Hynde specialty that she still masters. It’s a captivating number that’s more successful than the similarly slow-burning “Just Let It Go” that follows. The tempo and adrenalin both ratchet up for “Vainglorious” a typically tart call-out of arrogance that strongly references the group’s 1980 self-titled debut in its guitar tones, rhythmic drive and overall sound.
And then we arrive at closer “I Think About You Daily,” which finds Hynde collaborating with Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, who adorns this wistful ballad with a sweeping string arrangement. Too sweeping for me, if we’re being honest. Throughout her career, Hynde the performer has been tough and tender, spiky and sentimental, but never, ever maudlin. The lyric here isn’t maudlin, nor is the vocal… but the string arrangement here feels overwrought to the point that the word gains relevance.
Produced by David Wrench (David Byrne, Manic Street Preachers, Courtney Barnett), Relentless offers a varied and dynamic showcase for this year’s edition of Chrissie Hynde, as ever informed by her past and undaunted by her future. And if everything here didn’t work quite as well for me as I might have hoped, I can at least take solace in the fact that Chrissie Hynde could hardly care less what I think. Rock on, queen.