“Hackney Diamonds,” the veteran rock band’s 24th studio album, is due out Oct. 20, the Stones announced at a news conference on Wednesday. It’s the group’s first set of original songs since 2005’s “A Bigger Bang” and the band’s first LP since the death of founding drummer Charlie Watts in 2021.
Produced by Andrew Watt (known for his work with the likes of Post Malone and Justin Bieber), the album contains 12 tracks, including the chugging lead single, “Angry,” which dropped on Wednesday along with a music video starring “Euphoria’s” Sydney Sweeney in which she rides in a convertible down Sunset Boulevard as she passes billboards with well-known images from the Stones’ past.
In an event live-streamed on YouTube from the East London neighborhood that gives the album its title, the band’s Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood said they’d begun work on “Hackney Diamonds” shortly before Christmas last year and finished in February.
Asked by the event’s host, Jimmy Fallon, about recording without Watts, Richards said, “It’s different, of course.” Steve Jordan, who’s played drums on tour with the Stones of late, performs on the album, though the band said Watts appears on two cuts.
Wood also said Lady Gaga is featured on one song. In a statement, the band said that “full track list information will be revealed soon.”