The last time the Rolling Stones released a proper studio album, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were still a year or two away from retirement age, celebrated expanded reissues of “Exile on Main St”. and “Sticky Fingers” weren’t even being discussed and, most significantly, original drummer Charlie Watts was still alive. “A Bigger Bang” arrived in 2005 with a revitalized band linking their gloried past to a new future, and the Stones built on its momentum with several tours, repackaging of their classic records and enough nostalgia to remind everybody that they used to be the greatest band around.
Their 2016 album “Blue & Lonesome” managed a glance back even further, all the way to their original dues-paying club days, with a set of blues covers first made famous by their earliest heroes. It’s the best they sounded on record in decades. “Hackney Diamonds”, Will be only their second album of original material this century, finds the Rolling Stones at a curious stage in their long career: with both nothing and, for the first time in decades, something to prove.
And they step up for the occasion, delivering their most committed set of songs and performances in years. Starting strong with the first single release “Angry” – a blender whirl of classic Stones signposts – and continuing through to the LP-closing acoustic “Rolling Stone Blues,” “Hackney Diamonds” is the rare occurrence of a veteran band embracing its legacy with new determination. The Rolling Stones aren’t doing anything new here, but there’s a surprising amount of vitality to almost everything they do.
Producer Andrew Watt – who has worked with Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop and Eddie Vedder in recent years – never gets in the way of the songs, while still infusing tracks with nods to the band’s storied past. There’s Sticky Fingers-like sax in “Get Close,” a snarling, punk-inspired “Some Girls“-era vocal from Mick Jagger in “Bite My Head Off” and “Dreamy Skies,” a “Beggars Banquet” throwback featuring Keith Richards on acoustic slide.
“Hackney Diamonds” sounds like a half-century’s worth of classic Stones music distilled into 50 exhilarating minutes.
The album comes with a bigger guest list than usual: Elton John, Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder and original Stones bassist Bill Wyman show up in some capacity throughout. The late Charlie Watts appears on a couple of tracks that were started before his 2021 death. Steve Jordan, the Stones’ touring drummer and Richards‘ long time solo sideman, ably fills in for the rest.
But it’s the songs that will immediately grab you. Even the ballads are uniformly solid: “Depending on You” and “Driving Me Too Hard” absorb country influences; “Sweet Sounds of Heaven” builds over seven and a half minutes, recalling a “Let It Bleed” castoff with Lady Gaga channelling a Merry Clayton. Maybe it’s the renewal of their fighting spirit, or perhaps they realize that because it took nearly two decades to get here, this could be their last album. Whatever the reason, Hackney Diamonds finds the Rolling Stones sublimely reclaiming a crown as the greatest Rock n Roll Band in the world ever.
Driving the album forward & new processes, “It’s completely different. We used to live in the same flat. I didn’t play much guitar; Keith did. Sometimes he would give me ideas for lyrics and I sang all the top lines. Because we lived together we would come up with all this stuff, then carry around a reel-to-reel tape recorder when we were on tour.”
“These days, I know I can sit down at the piano in my house and come up with something. Might be “Sweet Sounds of Heaven“. Might stand there with a distorted guitar and come up with “Bite My Head Off”. It is magic, in a way, because you sit down with nothing and ten minutes later you have something.”
The album has a legendary cast of featured artists including Elton, Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga & Stevie Wonder “I was sitting there singing when I saw a woman sitting at my feet and went, ‘Oh, it’s Lady Gaga’. Turns out she was recording next door. I gave her some headphones, she did a few oohs and aahs, and I said, ‘Why don’t you sing the words?’”
“I was kind of surprised Paul wanted to play on “Bite My Head Off” actually. I wrote so many punk songs for the Stones and I could never get away with them, but Paul is a very open-minded person — musically speaking.”
New sounds & working with producer Andrew Watt “Andy’s a pop producer who loves rock’n’roll. I’m not trying to make the Rolling Stones not sound like the Rolling Stones — that would be really stupid, especially after not putting out an album for so long — but the temptation a lot of producers have is to remake their favourite Stones album. I had to say to Andy, ‘We’re not making “Sticky Fingers” Mark II here. A few references are OK. Loads of references are not OK.’”
The Fat Angel Sings 