The Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts in front of The Marquee Club in London in July 2012.Reuters
Please allow them to reintroduce themselves. The Rolling Stones have released Doom and Gloom, their first new tune in seven years, not counting the hocus-pocus rehash involved with 2010's Exile on Main St. reissue. Its trebly-Telecaster cross-saw riffage is something along the lines of When the Whip Comes Down or Undercover of the Night or, more recently, You Got Me Rocking (1993).
In strong throat, Mick Jagger frets about fracking, screw-tightening and crash landings, with the current world's turmoil and sky-falling forcing him to "put my feet up on the couch and lock all the doors." Charlie Watts leads a straightforward chug; there are no solos from the creaky misters Wood and Richards.
The track, recorded earlier this year in Paris with their go-to producer Don Was, will be one of two new ones included on the Stones' forthcoming GRRR! Greatest Hits Collection. (The wonder boys at Universal Music get paid to come up with cornflake titles like this).
The compilation, due Nov. 13, possibly precedes live dates from the 50-year-old going concern. Shows in London and Brooklyn are rumoured. An HBO documentary on the famously unsatisfiable band, Crossfire Hurricane, premieres on Nov. 15 (rollingstones.com/crossfire-hurricane).
The tension-releasing chorus of Doom and Gloom has Jagger asking us to take a chance – "Baby, won't you dance with me?" Michael Philip, of course we will. We've been waiting for long, long years, and it's about time you made it back around.
Brad Wheeler