The Rolling Stones' new album is due out Oct. 20.Mark Seliger/Supplied
“I hear a melody ringing in my brain,” Mick Jagger sings on the Rolling Stones’ Angry. “You can keep the memories, don’t have to be ashamed.”
The hard-hitting single released this summer is the opening track to the forthcoming Hackney Diamonds, an album that leans on history with no shame at all. Indeed, the promotional video for Angry employs archival images of the surviving Stones (Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood) from their most glorious past.
Set to drop Oct. 20, Hackney Diamonds is the band’s first studio album of original material since 2005′s A Bigger Bang. The title is East London slang for the shards of broken glass left over after a robbery. Last year the band celebrated its diamond anniversary.
The album is a brazen, rugged blast from years gone by, all sneered vocals from Jagger and open-tuned guitar riffs from Richards. Late drummer Charlie Watts features on two tracks, Mess It Up and Live By The Sword; former bassist Bill Wyman plays on the latter. Elton John tinkles ivories on Get Close and Live by the Sword, and Lady Gaga, Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney also make cameos.
Here is a ranking of the dozen tracks of Hackney Diamonds, from the many gems down to the costume jewellery.
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Sweet Sounds of Heaven: If you guessed this was a gospel-based number by its title, you would be right. The album’s second single, with Wonder on piano and Lady Gaga sharing vocals with Jagger, sprawls among the pews for more than seven minutes. The Stones have not sounded this churchy since Shine a Light in 1972.
Get Close: A sturdy rocker with a groove tighter than Jagger’s wallet. And while saxophone solos have long been out of favour, we should all be glad the Stones don’t give a rat’s behind about current fashions.
Tell Me Straight: The last great Stones record wasn’t a Stones record at all. Keith Richards’s Talk is Cheap from 1988 was a lesson on lean riffs and deep rhythms. “Is my future all in the past?” Richards sings for the only time on Hackney Diamonds, and, indeed, the sparse breakup song Tell Me Straight is a lovely echo of his solo catalogue.
Mess it Up: The chorus, seemingly sang under the light of a disco ball, is what makes this one. Where did you go, Studio 54-era Stones? We missed you.
Dreamy Skies: Dreamy Skies: “I got to take a break from it all,” Jagger sings on the mid-album track that serves as an acoustic-country interlude and namechecks Hank Williams. Is that Richards on a National steel guitar? A relaxed Jagger sounds as if he is blowing harp from a hammock in the West Indies – “a place where no one can call.”
Rolling Stone Blues: A Mississippi Delta standard otherwise known as Catfish Blues or Rollin’ Stone, this one might be a leftover from the Stones’ Grammy-winning covers album Lonesome & Blue from 2016. Thumping and authentic – the Stones only fish in the muddiest of waters.
The Stones' Hackney Diamonds contains many gems, writes The Globe's Brad Wheeler.Mark Seliger/Supplied
Depending on You: Jagger lets his guard down on a sweet ballad about someone “too young to die and too old to lose.” Nice.
Bite My Head Off: “Come on, Paul,” Jagger shouts, “let’s hear some bass.” That is Paul, as in Paul McCartney, recruited for a punk number so convincing that the Sex Pistols will be asking for their safety pins back.
Angry: On which the dependable kicks and brash energy of the late-career Stones are offered. The slashing guitar chords will have Clash ears burning. Lyrics are unexceptional, possibly written by Jagger between innings of the cricket matches he loves to attend.
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Whole Wide World: “You think the party’s over, but it’s only just [only just] began.” The chorus to the defiant rocker is the album’s feelgood moment, and the un-Stonesy guitar solo suggests the band is up for new tricks in the twilight.
Live by the Sword: Fun but forgettable. There is an old East London proverb: Live by generic pub rock, die by generic pub rock.
Driving Me Too Hard: Forgettable and not fun. Jagger rhymes “look what you’ve done to me” with “twisted my sanity” on a mid-tempo number that starts like Tumbling Dice but fails to get on a roll.