Pretenders: Loose Screw : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

On the Pretenders' eighth album, Chrissie Hynde and collaborator Adam Seymour have matched expansive songs to roomy reggae-ish bottoms. The results are top-flight: With one exception -- "Lie to Me," a thuggy, technologically tricked-up number -- everything here is all programmed refinement, stylish melodies and vocal fireworks. On "You Know Who Your Friends Are," Hynde is lost in some obscure story, yet her voice sails over the Sly and Robbie-style groove with authority. On "Clean Up Woman," as the band slides through what sounds like a lost reggae classic, she portrays an everyday superwoman with a mysterious air; on a dynamite version of the All Seeing I's "Walk Like a Panther," she returns much of the 1988 U.K. hit's soul source -- the Temptations' "(I Know) I'm Losing You" -- to the tune. And on a ballad masterpiece titled "The Losing," Hynde takes the role of a woman hooked on pain. Throughout Loose Screw, though, Hynde herself hasn't got time for that.