Pretenders, “Relentless.”

More than 40 years after an amazing debut album, Chrissie Hynde is still baring her emotions for all to see and hear. After all this time, even if she feels bad, she still feels.

The themes on Relentless, Pretenders’ 12th studio album of new material, mostly focus on the same ones Hynde has been rolling out for, especially, the past several albums: love, the forms the best love takes, lost love, and coming out strong (or at least alive) when that love flies away.

But as loyal listeners know, that isn’t to say Hynde is prone to giving her heart away. On “A Love,” she acknowledges love’s charms, but remains wary. “A love like ones I’ve heard about in song, a love like that may come to me, but never for very long,” she sings. Amid the song’s chiming guitars, Hynde confesses to a prospective partner, “I’m not scared of you/ I’m scared of what could be.”

Even if Relentless doesn’t feature an absolute classic like “Brass in Pocket” or a more recent gem like “Love’s a Mystery,” from 2008’s Breaking Up the Concrete, the new album is chock full of pithy observations. That’s the case with most Pretenders efforts. On “Merry Widow,” Hynde is “a divorcee, but I feel like a widow … a merry, merry widow,” broken away from a husband she says views love like a competitive sport.

That song starts out slow and sludgy, almost dirge-like, with momentum building to a Bo-Diddley-ish thumper. It’s a reflection of Relentless overall, which presents the core trio of Hynde, guitarist/bassist James Walbourne and drummer Kris Sonne (no Martin Chambers this time around) working in a variety of styles.

It’s slow and languorous on “The Copa,” “The Promise of Love” and “Your House is On Fire.” The rockers include “Just Let it Go,” “Let the Sun Come In” and especially “Vainglorious,” all of which include Walbourne’s slithering yet chunky soloing atop a rhythm bed laid by him or Hynde. Walbourne, who first appeared with Pretenders on Break Up the Concrete, co-wrote all the songs on Relentless with Hynde, and it seems those two have created a strong musical partnership.

“Look Away” may be a low-volume mostly acoustic song, but it isn’t exactly pastoral. Hynde plays the tough woman burned by life and love, but much like the downcast romantic in “Love’s a Mystery,” would happily do it all again. “I try to look away, but the pull is much too strong,” she sings.

And then there’s the album’s finale, “I Think About You Daily,” a slow 6-and-a-half-minute number mostly powered by a large string section, casting Hynde as a chanteuse dripping with regret about a lover she equates to “a rock I couldn’t move or touch.” It’s easy to imagine Hynde standing in a spotlight in a darkened hall, letting these words deliberately find their way out of her mouth as the strings swoop and swirl around her.

Hynde, by her standards, may have mellowed—a bit—on Relentless. There’s nothing as hard-driving here as “Middle of the Road” or “Mystery Achievement.” But there also isn’t anything here to suggest her powers of observation, or her openness about sharing what she feels, have diminished a whit.

Follow journalist Sam Richards at Twitter.com/samrichardsWC.