Challengers – Ruthless – Reviews

I personally Contenders Last summer I found them again. And suddenly, after many years of not thinking about it anymore, after several (too many) missed entries due to lack of time and perhaps even curiosity. Rome, Circus Maximus, July 8. Since the venue for rock concerts is not exactly suitable, the performance – unless you have purchased a golden circle – can only be guessed by the giant screens scattered across the lawn, and so suddenly an unmistakable face materializes on the monitors (no longer free of grooves) Chrissie Hynde. Yes, his band opened for Guns N’ Roses and I knew it at that moment (I’m starting to get old and don’t worry about knowing everything in advance anymore).

Belonging Contenders there is clearly little left of the originals today: the frontwoman, ok, and then the drummer Martin Chambers. Stop. However, the presence of a guitarist is not trivial. James Walbournthe last to join the line-up, in 2008, and today takes an active part in writing songs with him. Hind. In fact, it is he who inspires the leader, who always has the last word, and God willing: “He always comes up with something that I would never have thought of,” she explained about her partner, “and I love surprises.”

The modus operandi is also interesting: it works intelligently even now that the pandemic is over. And then, upon closer inspection, they operated this way even before remote work became a necessity for a large portion of those forced into isolation: “We developed this method in the past and continued to do so for this album. We turned it into art.” Whether this improves performance or not is still a matter of debate, but what is certain is that Let the sun go downthe first, irresistible taste of the new sessions we shared about three months ago takes us right back to the time when smart work it would be a meaningless neologism, that is, to the golden years Contendersearly 80s (though perhaps their most famous song today, I’ll be there for you, will appear in the middle of the next decade). Finding them like this, or almost like this, is good for the soul.

In the capital, the Anglo-American group presented another song presented at Ruthlessposted at the opening of the exhibition: adrenaline rush I’m losing my sense of taste which of course also opens the album. At first it seemed like ballast, but after a couple more listens you put it on like a rescue backpack. In fact, it doesn’t take long to realize that this twelfth album is at least a step above the previous one, which is great news for a band that has once again put off committing to writing its epitaph.

Contribution Walbourne This is fresh air, you can even catch it Hate is on sale (which I have obviously restored in the meantime), and is even more evident in the hard and heavy riff Home silence, a song in which the vocalist descends like a seasoned blueswoman, as if tipsy and sings in a drawn-out and sensuous, yet energetic, determined manner. As they say, he has big balls there Chrissy, a man in a woman’s body, but in this man there is another woman, and so on. Versatility, another of his qualities, explored for the millionth time. Be in lovefair piece halfway between Springsteen, Ramones and the very first REM sleep; and the body of a thousand whales, I’m struck by the riff of the above Let the sun go down does not remember guitarism Peter Buck (yes, yes: People glowing with happiness).

Masters, fellow travelers, but also followers. Promise of Love it almost imitates one Adelebut taught her to write songs. Merry Widow for its part, it is fatal, inescapable, it grows with distance and, as it advances, overthrows everything it encounters: the best piece of the lot for the writer. Slightly better than the penultimate track on the set list, Conceited which was apparently written by a group of twenty-somethings looking to sign Richie Finestra in the mid-’70s. And guess who we meet at the end? Jonny Greenwood

who kindly agreed to conduct the strings in the finale I think about you every day. We still don’t know if this is actually true Radiohead they will agree to work with Robbie WilliamsGreenwood-Pretenders is a really good pairing.