{"id":784937,"date":"2026-07-07T14:19:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T14:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/784937\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T14:19:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T14:19:22","slug":"rolling-stones-foreign-tongues-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/784937\/","title":{"rendered":"Rolling Stones, ‘Foreign Tongues’: Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rolling Stones<\/a>\u00a0have touted the recording of their 25th album,\u00a0Foreign Tongues, as having been completed quickly, with most sessions taking place in less than a month. The accelerated rush at West London’s Metropolis Studios is meant to recall the swiftness of the band’s early days, when new Rolling Stones songs were released every couple of months.<\/p>\n

That comparison is no accident. The band has been on a creative rebound lately, with their previous two records\u00a0\u2014 2016’s all-blues-covers\u00a0Blue and Lonesome<\/a> and\u00a0Hackney Diamonds<\/a>\u00a0from 2023, their first album of original material in 18 years \u2014 featuring their best and most inspired work in decades. With Foreign Tongues, they\u00a0continue the streak.<\/p>\n

Like last time, there are big-name guests\u00a0\u2014 Paul McCartney<\/a>, who made an appearance on Hackney Diamonds, is back, and the Cure<\/a>‘s Robert Smith<\/a> provides some assistance. And returning producer\u00a0Andrew Watt<\/a>\u00a0structures Foreign Tongues\u00a0like a classic Rolling Stones album,\u00a0integrating\u00a0riff-driven rock songs (“In the Stars”), mid-tempo ballads (“Jealous Lover”), blues belters (“Rough and Twisted”), a country-tilting track (“Ringing Hollow”) and a solo spotlight for\u00a0Keith Richards<\/a> (“Some of Us”).<\/p>\n

READ MORE: The Top 100 Rock Songs of All Time<\/a><\/p>\n

There are even a couple of covers: Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good” and a low-fi, acoustic version of\u00a0Chuck Berry<\/a>‘s “Beautiful Delilah,”\u00a0a song the Stones\u00a0were performing in 1964 (as heard on the 2017 BBC set\u00a0On Air).\u00a0But the best of the 14 tracks are the new originals penned by Richards and\u00a0Mick Jagger<\/a>;\u00a0as with the album’s swift recording, they are\u00a0intended to replicate the band’s past, in this case, their ’70s commercial prime. Songs such as “Rough and Twisted” and “Divine Intervention” especially explode\u00a0with nostalgic intensity. But this has been the Stones’ stock-in-trade since being crowned the World’s Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band. They can’t help but sound like the Rolling Stones, no matter the context.<\/p>\n

And Foreign Tongues\u00a0sounds like a Rolling Stones album, and a good one at that. Slide guitar, harmonica and gospel-meets-R&B female backing singers snake through the songs with the self-conscious yet effortless swagger that’s defined their best records. Watt’s algorithmic polish sometimes expunges the record of a personality, and the Winehouse cover and the six-plus minutes of “Back in Your Life” wouldn’t be missed if cut, but the band rarely shows its age on\u00a0Foreign Tongues. It’s another late-career win.<\/p>\n

From the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd to Led Zeppelin and Fleetwood Mac: The Top 100 Albums of the ’70s<\/p>\n

The decade where music hit its groove.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gallery Credit: Michael Gallucci<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rolling Stones\u00a0have touted the recording of their 25th album,\u00a0Foreign Tongues, as having been completed quickly, with most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":784938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[63542,64,63,134,136,44],"class_list":["post-784937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-album-reviews","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}