The Rolling Stone’s first solo album in 23 years contains exactly what one might hope for. There are beautifully played old blues songs, storming Stonesy rockers (Heartstopper, the ferocious Blues in the Morning), a sublime Gregory Isaacs reggae cover (Love Overdue) and outlaw songs about evading the authorities (Trouble). There’s dry humour in a touching lament about, ahem, the theft of a “stash” (Robbed Blind, in which he cackles: “The cops, I can’t involve them”) and the jerkily funny Amnesia, about the 2006 incident in which he fell out of a tree (“Thought I met my mother / She said: ‘You don’t belong to me’”). Contrarily, there are also several beautiful, heartfelt ballads. Richards’ fag-soaked voice isn’t as conventionally strong as Mick Jagger’s, but it is rich with character and knowing. The gorgeous Nothing on Me – about surviving whatever life throws at him – is as great a song as the 71-year-old has put his name to in decades. A terrific album, worthy of one of rock’s founding fathers.
