By Adrian Woods, Staff Writer

[ABKCO, 2023]

Rating: 3/10

Key tracks: “Depending On You”, “Dreamy Skies”, “Rolling Stone Blues”

What can be said about The Rolling Stones that hasn’t already been said? An iconic band, intensely talented in nearly every aspect, with classic albums under their belt like Sticky Fingers, Let It Bleed, Exile on Main St, and of course everyone’s favorite, Their Satanic Majesties Request. For the first time in 18 years, The Rolling Stones are back Hackney Diamonds, an album that is definitely nowhere near any of their classic albums.

To give credit where credit is due, it’s admirable to see a band like The Rolling Stones still go out there and make music considering how long they have been in the scene and the recent loss of drummer Charlie Watts in 2021. To see them attempt to bring something new to their catalog after all these years is quite impressive, but the album is anything but impressive.

Following the announcement of Hackney Diamonds, the lead single and the track that kicks off the album “Angry” is a song that was an immediate red flag for the album. The song covers a lot of the problems with the whole album, the production, the writing, and the vocals feel wrong for a Stones album compared to the rest of their discography. 

So much of this album’s production is supposed to sound like “new” rock and roll and it just feels uninspired and stale. It’s loud, but has no personality to it; the same goes for the songwriting for this record. This is easily the worst written Rolling Stones album to date. None of these songs are memorable outside of how bad they are, even then they are still forgettable. It’s just uncomfortable to listen to an 80 year old man yell about how ‘Angry’ he is throughout the majority of the album. Even when the songs are actually decent like “Depending on You”, and “Dreamy Skies”, it’s because the album is actually slowing down for once instead of giving you these bland, heavy rock songs. Mick Jagger brings out his Southern accent on “Depending on You” like he would on songs like “Far Away Eyes”. It feels like a song with actual creativity and character, like it could be from an old Rolling Stones album. But you don’t see very much creativity aside from little sparks every now and then. “Get Close”, “Whole Wide World”, and “Mess It Up” all have “I’m so cool” attitudes to them that harms them more than it benefits them, with the production sounding so shiny and clean with the most boring Rolling Stones lyrics to date. The duet track with Lady Gaga “Sweet Sound Of Heaven” feels like it goes on forever clocking in at over seven minutes long.

Mick is trying his absolute hardest with the vocals, and while I do give him credit for belting out tunes at 80 years old, it just does not sound good with the production (and especially the mixing) of the albums. Some of the songs are so poorly mixed that on songs with features like “Bite My Head Off ” featuring Paul McCartney, you can barely even hear him sing, same with Elton John on “Live By The Sword”. Mick’s voice is clearly altered by the mix as well, and it does not go in his favor. 

The ending of the album is surprisingly one of the few high notes of the record. “Rolling Stone Blues”  feels like a two minute and forty second little jam session with the band members, which is far better than the majority of the album. A Rolling Stones jam session album probably would have been much better than Hackney Diamonds. The Rolling Stones have given so much to the music world through their iconic music and albums, and this album will definitely not be brought up when talking about key Rolling Stones records.

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