Music Reviews: The Rolling Stones’ ‘Foreign Tongues,’ plus Soul Music from Baltimore

The Rolling Stones’ last album of new material, 2023’s Hackney Diamonds, was their first such CD in 18 years. Now, a little less than three years later, they’re back with Foreign Tongues. They must have realized that at this point, waiting another 18 years to record again wouldn’t work out so well. Time is not on their side.

Two of the group’s three remaining longtime members, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, are now octogenarians, and by next June, that label will also apply to the relative youngster among them, Ronnie Wood. All three look their age in photos, but if you heard one of their 1970s sets alongside the new one and weren’t familiar with either, you’d have a tough time identifying which was recorded by a youngish crew. Like the group’s half-century-old recordings, Foreign Tongues delivers powerful doses of the Stones’ blues and R&B-spiced signature sound.

The 14-track album, which the group reportedly assembled with atypical speed in less than a month, has a lot in common with Hackney Diamonds. Like that CD, for example, the new one finds the trio working with drummer Steve Jordan, bassist Darryl Jones, assorted session musicians, and a handful of luminous guests. Paul McCartney, Steve Winwood, the Cure’s Robert Smith, Bruno Mars (on cowbell!), and the Heartbreakers’ Benmont Trench all show up in the credits, though most of their contributions are barely discernible. The late Charlie Watts is here on one number, too, via a drum track recorded in 2021.

As with Hackney Diamonds, the band delegated production tasks for the new LP to 35-year-old Grammy-winner Andrew Watt, who has previously worked with an extremely diverse assortment of artists—everyone from Iggy Pop and Lady Gaga to Ozzy Osbourne and Justin Bieber. And while Jagger and Richards have co-authored the vast majority of the band’s compositions, this set, like Hackney Diamonds, includes several co-writes with outsiders. There are two with Watt and an equal number with longtime Jagger collaborator Matt Clifford, who plays keyboards in the Stones’ touring band and on several tracks here. Also featured are a cover of Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good” and a version of “Beautiful Delilah,” by Chuck Berry, a major Stones influence whose songs also show up on several of the group’s 1960s LPs.

Guitar-based hard rockers reminiscent of numbers like “Start Me Up” and “Neighbors” dominate the program on Foreign Tongues. Among these are the album-opening “Rough and Twisted,” which tips a hat to Chicago blues and includes a reference to Muddy Waters; “In the Stars,” in which Jagger asks the musical question, “Do you wanna dance ’til the roof caves in?”; and the potent “Divine Intervention,” where he proclaims that “Dystopian values are too hot to handle and I’m going out in a blaze.”

But some of the best moments happen when the Stones slow things down a bit, such as on the funky, Motown- and disco-influenced “Jealous Lover,” where Jagger shows off his falsetto; “Some of Us,” which offers a reminder that Richards remains an underrated vocalist; “Back in Your Life,” a moody ballad with an emotive Jagger vocal and an excellent Wood guitar solo; and “Beautiful Delilah,” where Jagger, Richards, and Wood are accompanied only by the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith, who plays a bass drum.

Another winner is the midtempo, country-influenced “Ringing Hollow,” which features tasty guitar work and the album’s most overtly political lyric. It starts as an homage to America, with Jagger singing, “I was madly in love with you before we even met / I saw all your movies, I smoked your cigarettes.” But, he adds, “They took away the welcome mat” and “Lady Liberty don’t look so good when she’s wearing a frown.”

Elsewhere on the album, Jagger and Richards throw in references to “a sickness in the land,” “tyranny,” and “mad mogul Mr. Musk.” But such lines come in songs that are primarily apolitical. As Jagger recently told the New York Times, he has “gotten into this habit of doing songs that are about personal relationships and then I throw a verse about politics in there…Nobody wants to hear a whole song about politics or social comment.”

Artists such as Bruce Springsteen might beg to differ, but be that as it may, this 25^th Stones studio LP delivers what most fans likely want from the group. Granted, Foreign Tongues contains no surprises or major innovations and nothing quite as memorable as the band’s classic tracks from the 1960s and 1970s. But everything here sounds worthy of the Stones, probably in no small part because it also sounds as if they’re still having fun making music.

Will this be their last album? Perhaps. As Jagger told the Times, “I could get run over by a bus outside of my house. You never really know, do you?” No, you don’t, but if this is the Stones’ coda, it’s a good one.

Rarely Heard Soul Standouts from Baltimore

R&B in DC: 1940–1960, a mammoth 2021 box set, revealed that a ton of previously little-known R&B has issued from America’s capital. Now comes What’s Happening!!: The Chariot Records Story, which reveals that nearby Baltimore has also been the source of some underappreciated soul-infused R&B and other music.

The two-disc compendium focuses on the catalog of a mid-1960s/early 1970s label based in that city. Dominating the 36-track program is the complete recorded output of two of its groups, Bob Brady & the Con Chords and Coyote.

The former outfit shines on Northern soul tracks like “Goodbye Baby” and Tell Me Why,” which sound redolent of Smokey Robinson. Less impressive are most of the numbers by Coyote, which seem dated and evoke a cross between 1970s-era country rockers and prog rockers. However, Coyote’s instrumental “Cowboys & Indians” is impressive, and there are some other noteworthy tracks in this anthology, such as “Jimmy’s Song,” from Pen Lucy, an offshoot of Brady’s band.