Chrissie Hynde is the rock chick who tells other rock chicks where to get off. Over the best part of three decades she's seen and done it all, enduring drug traumas, stormy relationships and yo-yoing commercial fortunes and somehow managing to maintain her dignity throughout it all. And as the Pretenders' sturdy new album shows, at 52 she can still hold her own with just about any female vocalist you care to mention. On the surface, Loose Screw seems like just another adult-orientated rock album, competent but unremarkable. Throw in Hynde's voice, however - raw, stinging yet impeccably graceful - and you've got something much more substantial. As the song titles suggest ('Lie To Me', 'Fools Must Die'), it's an album filled with her trademark cynicism and spite, presumably aimed at anyone who's managed to offend her over the last few years. A few ill-advised reggae experiments slow the album's momentum, and the production is occasionally just a little too polished. Overall, however, Loose Screw exudes sheer class - a little bit like Hynde herself. Long may she continue.
