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Knowing when to leave the party is crucial. The Rolling Stones’ storied 64-year career has been offering potential exits to its central protagonists for decades. Stones fans have been scooping up tickets for shows that ‘could be their last’ since at least ’76. The 2021 death of Charlie Watts seemed unsurvivable, yet the Stones endured. Not just for what felt a lot like a farewell tour, but for Hackney Diamonds, an unlikely zeitgeist-grabbing triumph of an LP that closed, appropriately enough, with Rolling Stone Blues. The circle complete, all that was left for the Stones to do was call a cab. But here we are...
Foreign Tongues had been rock’s worst-kept secret for some time before lead single (and album opener) Rough And Twisted dropped in April to acclaim and relief (a typical low-end-heavy Andrew Watt production captured the 21st-century Stones at their predictable best). Media duly frenzied. Mission accomplished.
Then In The Stars, a BV-heavy slow-burner, arrived to relatively muted response, ditto the debut of the album’s unflattering sleeve (a merged collage of MickKeithRon’s faces by Nathaniel Mary Quinn). Guest star turns were promised: Macca, Winwood, Smiths Chad and Robert, another from Charlie, and the planet prepared for, well, Hackney Diamonds II.
So here goes. Trigger alert: Jealous Lover recalls Emotional Rescue. Mick Jagger clearly feels the best way to showcase ageless vocal prowess is falsetto. And yes, if there’s one irrefutable plus about FT, it’s Jagger’s performance. Identikit belter Mr Charm finds K ’n’ R weaving reliably. More falsettos define billionaire bash Divine Intervention, Ringing Hollow deploys a Dear Doctor drawl, Never Wanna Lose You’s a dance-inflected Some Girls-by-numbers, while Some Of Us finds reflective C&W balladeer KR on his knees.
Highlight? The relief of Charlie’s masterful signature bounce on punk-paced Hit Me In The Head. Lowlight? 82-year-old Mick delivering the line ‘lick your lips as I soap my feet’ on a Strange Game-recalling cover of Amy Winehouse’s You Know I’m No Good.
Despite an ultimately wearing, overbearing Watt production job, Foreign Tongues duly delivers as a pretty good Stones album. Closing barnstormer Back In Your Life’s pure gold helps, before a final, deliberately rough take on Chuck’s Beautiful Delilah reprises Hackney Diamonds’ Rolling Stone Blues where-we-came-in sign-off. Only a seven? Well, obviously a Stones’ seven equates to anyone else’s eight, but a seven all the same.
