Rolling Stones Hackney Diamonds review: Angry is the band’s best single in 40 years

My God, it’s good to have the Rolling Stones back. Angry is their best single in four decades, an absolute blast powered by a defiantly dumb stop start riff that recaptures the energy of Start Me Up and Jagger attacking the lyric with his best mockney sneer and an extravagant, leering defiance.

“Let’s go out in a blaze,” Jagger yells, and it certainly sounds like the Stones are determined to do that. We are treated to trademark Glimmer Twin harmonies, Ronnie Wood’s rippling rock’n’roll licks and that rarest of things, a brief, gnarly but lyrical Keef lead solo.

The style may be unapologetically old fashioned, but the sonic punch is bang up to date. It is produced by man of the moment Andrew Watt, who started out making state of the art pop with Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus, but has lately translated cutting edge studio techniques to old rockers Ozzy Osbourne and Iggy Pop.

Sydney Sweeney in the video for Angry. Photo / YouTube

The video is fantastic. In unrepentantly retro form, it features the actress Sydney Sweeney riding in an open top car through Los Angeles, beneath billboards of the Stones down the ages that spring to life as if they are performing the song. So we are treated to classic images, outrageous tailoring, Charlie back on drums and Keith giving a woman young enough to be his great-granddaughter a wink.

It bodes well for a forthcoming album, Hackney Diamonds, that promises to be a big, brash, energetic recapitulation of the Stones at their rockiest and most direct.

From what I’ve heard it is going to put smiles on a lot of faces, their best and most cohesive album since their 70s glory days, embracing rock, blues, disco, country and an epic showstopping almost spiritual conclusion, Sweet Sound of Heaven, featuring Lady Gaga going toe to toe with Jagger.

A scene from the Angry video. Photo / YouTube

He called it “a gospel song” during a flippant press launch at Hackney Empire, which caused Richards to convulse with laughter. “You’ve never been into a church in your life,” Keith snorted. The old devils have still got it.

The album features some world-class guests, including Paul McCartney with a bass solo, and Stevie Wonder and Elton John on piano. But it is the surviving trio of Stones and their superb live band who are front and centre of an album that was years in gestation, but was finally put down in a series of short, sharp sessions in Jamaica, New York and Los Angeles between Christmas 2022 and February this year.

“When the singer wants to make a record, you’ve got to go,” said Richards.

The songwriting partners seemed close and relaxed in each other’s company, which has famously not always been the case. Asked the secret of a partnership that has lasted 62 years so far, Jagger smirked “Not speaking too often” whilst Richards added “Knowing how to tell someone to shut up politely.” At least they were both smiling.

There are also old Stones in the mix, with Bill Wyman returning on bass for one track, and the late lamented Charlie Watts lending his incomparable swing to two songs completed before his death in 2021. The band themselves seem confident about its reception. “I don’t wanna be big headed,” boasted Jagger (God forbid) “but we’re quite pleased with it.”

All three surviving Stones looked trim and healthy, and not exactly set upon a quiet retirement. For anyone wondering if this might be the Stones swan song, guitarist Ronnie Wood revealed that they had recorded enough for two albums. There’s 12 songs on Hackney Diamonds and 11 more in the can. The Stones haven’t finished rolling yet.