Concrete Blonde: Bloodletting

HOW TOUGH is Johnette Napolitano? Maybe here's a clue. Bloodletting, as Mat Smith noted, is an intensely personal LP, cruelly close to her, but for all that there's not a vicarious pleasure to be had here. She doesn't allow us that pleasure. Concrete Blonde, instead, are The Pretenders stripped raw, down to the bone, wild and naked rather than studio-cocooned.