The Rolling Stones – Foreign Tongues
★★★
Polydor/ Capitol
Another new Rolling Stones album? Only three years since the last? And again with the Andrew Watt production? If you’ve grown comfortable with the band’s lengthy between-album hiatuses, or sceptical of the benefits that Watt brings to his charges – Paul McCartney, Elton John, Pearl Jam, all of them (you’d think) quite capable of producing themselves – your red flags will be fluttering.
If so, then rest easy – or mostly. Foreign Tongues turns out to be a rousing and varied experience with plenty of trademark Stones action and only a handful of caveats. Dig the inimitable duelling guitar gnarl of the visceral Rough And Twisted, Keith Richards mixed here on the left and Ronnie Wood over there on the right like a 2026 version of the Keith/Little Mick separation on Let It Bleed’s Live With Me. Or the echoes of Soul Survivor in Richards’ repeated riff to In The Stars, a phantom of Gimme Shelter’s apocalyptic vision, with Jagger noting “a sickness in the land” but concluding with an exhortatory “Do you wanna dance till the roof falls in?” – repentance be damned. Better still is Ringing Hollow: a post-Gram Parsons country swinger, on the edge between relaxed and reflective, Jagger road-tripping across the American landscape, with flashing images that weigh a lifetime in thrall to its culture. “The dreamers get the dream they want,” he concludes, almost wisely, as, nearly buried, Keith’s backing vocals growl and wheeze.
It’s the Stones doing Stones things – surely all we need. But apparently not, as Foreign Tongues piles on the guest appearances like cocaine on a 1972 rider. Steve Winwood – tantalisingly advertised on organ and piano – is everywhere but (kind of) nowhere. There’s a vague swirliness to one of the guitar tracks on Divine Intervention that may denote the presence of The Cure’s Robert Smith. But the conclusion that these names are here for a PR story rather than their distinctive musicality is inescapable. Bruno Mars is good on cowbell tonight, innee? Who can tell? Maybe in tribute to Brian Jones’s famous intention to “play the things you can’t hear”, he’s inaudible.
Granted, there’s a little too much loud and busy – Mr Charm and Hit Me In The Head (with an archived Charlie Watts drum track) barrel along, aggressively in your face – plus some unnecessary reaching for a modern airplay hit, the most palatable option being Never Wanna Lose You’s catchy crypto-disco, with Jagger barking and snarling in a weirdly fun way. Yet also key moments when the Stones’ soul shines through. Reliably, Keith’s lead vocal on Some Of Us adds empathy, more poignant still now it’s so clearly an effort, while the Heartbreakers’ Benmont Tench on organ – either given or taking more bandwidth than Winwood – weaves a spell. It’s one of those rather-too-rare moments where an instrumental part has room to breathe, as it does on the rueful Back In Your Life, with Ronnie Wood exquisite throughout, and incandescent on his epic closing solo (“Come on Ronnie!” cheerleads Jagger). Proof that, on a modern rock recording, everything need not be louder than anything else.
Foreign Tongues is out July 10 on Polydor/ Capitol.
ORDER: Amazon | Rough Trade | HMV
Tracklisting:
Rough And Twisted
In The Stars
Jealous Love
Mr. Charm
Divine Intervention
Ringing Hollow
Never Wanna Lose You
Hit Me In The Head
You Know I’m No Good
Some Of Us
Covered In You
Side Effects
Back In Your Life
Beautiful Delilah