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MRecently, ick Jagger released the 25th album of the Rolling Stones and said, “The thing about this song is that the Stones are a rock band that also has the ability to sing ballads, country songs or dance songs. The same can be said of many bands, but what the singer probably drives is that the Stones always manage to do all this while sounding like themselves. it does not.
They’ve also produced albums that sound like they’ve been phoned from cricket, but Foreign Tongues continues the renaissance that began with 2023. Hackney Diamondswhich was then their first solo album in 18 years. Once again, actor and occasional singer Andrew Watt captures the joy of a revived band singing together in the room – and, as guitarist Keith Richards recently put it, kicking ass when necessary. Maybe a drummer The death of Charlie Watts five years ago they raised the awareness of their founders that their team is not going to last long, so they can go down on fire and have fun while they do it.
Rough and Twisted is definitely the opening act, which shows their early love of Chicago blues (“All I drank was Muddy Waters”). Similarly, almost 60 years after Jagger said he was “baaawwnn in the storm” in Jumping Jack Flash, the singer leans into the blues legend again (“I was standing when the lightning struck”) for In the Stars, a song where everyone agrees he had his luck and shouts to the rooftops: “Do you hear the dance? The guitars are screaming and the choir is still singing.”
Jealous Lover turns the idea of a slinky disco number into the mold of Miss You or Emotional Rescue, but Foreign Tongues isn’t a fantasy or a repeat. It is a contemporary, sometimes political story in which a group confronts the world around them and their time left within it. Decades after Street Fighting Man and Gimme Shelter conquered the tumult of the late 1960s, several songs speak the truth, especially in the US.
“Lady Liberty ain’t lookin’ good when her dress’s in tatters,” Jagger sang in Ringing Hollow, the classic honky tonk ballad. In Covered in You, he wakes up “sick and tired of all these autocrats / You know, they seem to be breeding like dirty rats with their arrows on parade”, while the punkier Mr Charm is up against the “crazy mogul Mr Musk” whose only goal is to make money.
Not that the financially well-known Jagger needs a little money to splurge on himself, obviously, but to be fair, at (gulp) 82, the man sounds stronger and happier than in years. He relishes lines like the terrific Divine Intervention’s “dystopian values are too hot to handle” and “when they try to arrest you, I’ll come to save you”, then dust on his harmonica skills for a sprightly romp through Amy Winehouse’s You Know I’m No Good.
Steve Winwood, who was around in the 1960s, is an inspired choice on the organ and there are other good looks from Paul McCartney, the Cure’s Robert Smith, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and, surprisingly, Bruno Mars on the cowbell. As in Diamonds of Hackney, Watts drums behind the grave, this time on the dangerous rocker Hit Me in the Head, recorded in 2021, and thus another song that comes out with noise.
The playing racket is solved by the best moments. Jagger berates Ronnie Wood for a gut-wrenching guitar solo in Back in Your Life and Richards’ “human riff” allows a glimpse into the background of his wild image and soulful, vulnerable vocals in Enafe (“kneeling”).
Foreign Tongues don’t quite match the sacred music that started with 1968’s Beggars’ Feast, or beat The Other Girls, but for their age they’re amazing – and joined by the Hackney Diamonds, this is their best in years.
