| Rating |
Summary |
|
| n/a by Billboard |
The blues- and country-influenced songs on Break Up the Concrete are an engaging departure from the group's earlier hits, while Hynde's dynamic alto voice gives the set the unmistakable Pretenders identity. |
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| n/a by www.ew.com |
Fortunately, with her velvet-sandpaper vocals and unflappable rock-chick cool, Hynde is more than enough to build an album around. |
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| n/a by www.spin.com |
Along with four new Pretenders, she's crafted a statement that's stripped bare and dangerous, just like Hynde herself, who abandons much of her haughty cool to expose some long-concealed wounds as painful as the ones that Janis Joplin unfurled on Pearl. |
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| n/a by www.blender.com |
The Pretenders ninth studio album is a pleasant roots record. |
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| n/a by www.courant.com |
Many of Hynde's new songs call for honesty and compassion, and even if she never quite finds those things, her search yields some pretty vital rock 'n' roll. |
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| n/a by www.boston.com |
Her ninth studio album, recorded in just two weeks with an entirely new crew of Pretenders, just might be her most congenial, and certainly rootsiest, collection yet. |
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| n/a by Pitchfork Media |
Break Up the Concrete seems a bit uneven: The faster numbers begin to sound the same after a while, and the album hits a slight lull halfway through. |
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| n/a by Popmatters |
Working with a new band of co-conspirators, Hyndes subversively hard-core Concrete serves up just enough old Pretenders swing to lure back fans confused by 2002s relatively lackluster Loose Screw. |
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| n/a by www.pastemagazine.com |
Staunch admirers of the traditional Pretenders sound might not like this record, but I say, Yee-haw! |
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