Aside from their 2016 blues covers record, the last time The Rolling Stones gave us an album of fresh material was during George W. Bush’s presidency. That record, 2006’s “A Bigger Bang,” was aggressive but not particularly memorable, and in the nearly two decades since, even the Stones may have wondered whether we need another record from them. If they were going to drag themselves (and us) through the process again after so long, they also had to know that it would be worth it for everyone.
And shockingly, they did. Hackney Diamonds (out October 20) is not just another new Stones album, but a lively and coherent record – the first Stones album in ages that you’ll want to play more than once before putting it down.
Whether it’s a first-time Stones producer (Andrew Watt), technical gadgets or simply a desire to remind us why we cared about the Stones in the first place – it’s so brisk and focused They haven’t sounded for what feels like half a century. Keith Richards and Ron Wood’s guitars are crisp and uncluttered, and the sloppy strumming of the past is mostly gone. Depending on the song, Mick Jagger sounds snarky, annoyed, needy or careless, with lyrics to match and a more pronounced British accent: In the stuttering single “Angry” he spits: “It hasn’t rained in a month, the river’s run dry/We.” haven’t made love, and I wanna know why.” Not exactly rock poetry, that’s true, but he hasn’t been so committed to the songs since the heyday of the cassette. “Depending on You” could have been one of those languid ballads that found their way onto later Stones albums, but Jagger wails as if he wanted the whole world to hear it.
When all of these elements come together, a musical fountain of youth miraculously emerges. Towards the end of “Live by the Sword,” one of the two tracks they recorded with drummer Charlie Watts before he died in 2021, Jagger growls as the guitars erupt around him, and you’d hardly believe it was the 21st century .With Watt polishing up their sound just enough, songs that could have easily become dull feel revitalized. In “Mess It Up,” Jagger clumsily tries to appeal to anyone under 30 who has barely heard of the Stones: “You share my photos with all your friends / You put them out there, it makes no sense,” he rants, then complains about his lover stealing his “codes.” (Dude, we think the term is “passwords,” unless you have access to a nuclear arsenal and aren’t telling us.) But the combination of his lilting delivery and Watts’ percussive swing elevates the song, which is a smooth dance -Music kick has to go up. It’s also representative of the way some of these songs balance Jagger’s pop and Richards’ rock in a more seamless way than on records like Bridges to Babylon.
Steve Jordan, the longtime member of the X-Pensive Winos who took Watts’ place on the road, plays on the majority of the record. Jordan hits his kit harder than Watts ever did, but his contributions aren’t as flashy as they could have been. The album’s most ambitious track, “Sweet Sounds of Heaven,” throws everything against the wall: a gradually swelling honky-tonk gospel arrangement, Jagger contemplating starving people and quenching his own material thirst, Stevie Wonder, who rolls along on the piano, and Lady Gaga, who provides additional fervor.
Even Richards is upset. Since his “Some Girls” highlight “Before They Make Me Run,” his obligatory solo appearance on every Stones album has felt increasingly weak. But “Tell Me Straight,” built around a shadowy, skeletal riff that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a ’90s grunge record, is just as tight as the rest of the album, and he too sounds invested in every word and avoids the muddy lecture of the past.
What you won’t find here is the late introspection that you hear on the recent records of some of the Stones’ colleagues. We’re in a fascinating phase of rock history in which aging boomer rockers are not only dragging themselves onto the stage, but also continuing to write songs – uncharted territory for them and us. For the first time in this generation, we find out what Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon and Judy Collins have on their minds as they approach eighty – in songs that deal with mortality, with turbulent lives or look back at recent history and occasionally rant about the state of the planet or politics.
Don’t you want to know what’s going on in Jagger’s head?
Here and there on “Hackney Diamonds” Jagger indulges in his own contemplative moments. “The streets I used to walk are full of broken glass and everywhere I look there are reminders of the past,” he sings on “Whole Wide World,” which combines zig-zagging guitar parts with lyrics that leave us unsettled Times should cheer up. In the country shuffle “Dreamy Skies,” he longs for an old AM radio and a Hank Williams record to escape it all.
These expressions are as deep as it gets. Jagger still has a penchant for songs with choruses like “I wanna get close to you” or “You’ll think I’ll mess it up for you.” It feels like a missed opportunity: Don’t you want to know what’s going on in Jagger’s head? Instead, he rages on “Bite Your Head Off,” which feels like a dour old man update of “Get Off My Cloud”: “Ain’t on a leash/Well, I ain’t on a chain/You think I.” ‘m your bitch/I’m fucking with your brain.” (He seems more natural when he sings, “If you wanna get rich, better sit on the board” in “Live by the Sword.”)
But with a relatively unremarkable Paul McCartney on bass, “Bite Your Head Off” becomes a groovy musical spittoon, and Richards and Wood’s rave-up at the end is the best kind of sonic rollercoaster. The album’s conclusion – Jagger and Richards alone playing Muddy Waters’ “Rollin’ Stone”, here called “Rolling Stone Blues” – has a palpable and obvious sense of coming full circle. But maybe they are right. Whether this is their final album or not, perhaps songs like “Bite Your Head Off” are the way we want to remember them and rock itself.