The Rolling Stones: A Bigger Bang

Herald rating: * * *


Such was the high-tech security encryption surrounding my review copy of the Stones' new album, it would play in only one CD player in my possession - the one in the car stereo. So assessing its 16 tracks - their biggest offering since Exile on Main St - required much time to be spent on the road.

Yes, to get through A Bigger Bang it takes a lot of gas (gas gas).

Which is maybe apt as, for the past decade or two, the Stones have themed their money-sucking global tours around their new albums, even if they spend a large part of their time on stage ignoring the tracks from them.

In concert, introductory phrases "here's a song from the new album" - or alternatively "now Keith's going to sing one" - seemed cunningly designed to cause momentary upswings in business at the merchandise counters.

The advance word on this one was that it was a return to rock'n'roll form, doing away with the over-production and going-through-the-motions songwriting of albums that have been the Stones' general output since the early 80s.

And on first impressions, it does come on more raw, more energetic and ruder than its 80s and 90s predecessors.

The interplay of Keith Richards and Ron Wood's guitars sounds ragged and spontaneous rather than overdubbed to death.

And on songs such as the frenetic opener Rough Justice and Oh No Not You Again, Charlie Watts is in fine fettle, pounding away in his masterful frill-free style. Not bad for a 64-year-old who, between the Stones' last tour and this, had treatment for throat cancer.

But for much of A Bigger Bang while the spirit is the willing, the flesh of the songs is weak. Many, of course, come built to sturdy Stones blueprints - ones headed Brown Sugar, Under My Thumb and other Stones-raunchers seem the favoured options here.

At other times, they're sounding like they rediscovered the 80s - She Saw Me Coming sounds like it was the J.Geils Band's Angel is A Centrefold in a former life. And the lawyers for INXS, if not too busy stitching up some poor deluded fool to be the band's new singer, might love to hear the riffs to Look What the Cat Dragged In.

But what swings this into the mediocre is Jagger addressing the bulk of the songs to all the girls he's loved before.

Which might be interesting if they revealed something of the man and his stage in life rather than played up to his lothario image. His curiously affected vocals strip any sincerity out of the ballads Biggest Mistake, Laugh I Nearly Died and Streets of Love.

Richards gets in on the act too, crooning a sentimental valentine to his missus on This Place is Empty and croaking the terribly punsome Infamy ("You've got it infamy") as the finale.

Meanwhile, Jagger's "political" song Sweet Neo Con might be brave to take on the Bush Administration and the war on terror. But it undoes itself by the end of the first verse with some spectacularly stupid lyrics.

Elsewhere, though, there are moments when the phrase "recapturing old glories" can be applied.

The aforementioned Rough Justice and Oh No Not You Again, along with the brilliantly sneering It Won't Take Long, are the best rock'n'roll moments. Likewise, Rain Fall Down with its funky disco-rock and shades of MissYou is stupidly infectious and the blues number Back of My Hand is both gritty and gripping.

While the performances sound vital, the songs render much of A Bigger Bang a less dull thud than last time. Sure, some old glories get recaptured along the way. But any new ones remain out of reach.

Label: Virgin