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THE ROLLING STONES
A BIGGER BANG
BY MATT ASHARE
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It’s long been apparent that nothing short of the Reaper’s gonna stop the Stones — Keith, who once threatened to slit Mick’s throat if the straying singer didn’t agree to another tour, simply won’t let that happen. And if they’re going to tour, well, they gotta do an album, right? It’s telling that the tour started more than two weeks before the disc hits stores, on September 6, almost as an afterthought. What’s nice is that everyone involved seems to have settled on Some Girls, the Stones’ spirited 1978 response to disco and punk, and Tattoo You, a 1981 album that turned leftover Keith riffs into big fat hits like "Start Me Up," as the true blueprints for the Ronnie Wood–era band. That still leaves them plenty of room to maneuver — from the gritty 1-4-5 blooze rock of "Rough Justice" to discofied retreads like "Rain Fall Down" to the tender acoustic balladry of "Streets of Love" and back to the bare-bones slide blues of "Back of My Hand," each a serviceable new tune with the expected Chuck Berryisms, drums that sound as if Charlie were really playing them, and occasionally a memorable lyric or two. "Biggest Mistake" is pretty, in a dignified, countrified sorta way; "Oh No, Not You Again" is loose, rockin’, and self-referentially funny; the Bush-bashing" Sweet Neo-Con," built on little more than half a riff and some attitude, is, as Mick puts it in the humorous "Look What the Cat Dragged In," "a good time." When you go to grab a Stones album two years from now, this one won’t be it. But it sounds like a Stones album should, and that’s good enough.
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