Foreign Tongues

Foreign Tongues is the twenty-fifth British and the twenty-seventh American studio album by the English rock band the Rolling Stones, released on 10 July 2026. Produced by Andrew Watt, the album features musical contributions from Steve Jordan, Darryl Jones, Steve Winwood, Robert Smith, Paul McCartney, Benmont Tench, Bruno Mars, and Chad Smith, among others. It also features a song recorded with Charlie Watts prior to his death.

The lead single, "In the Stars", was released through YouTube and streaming services on 5 May 2026 backed with "Rough and Twisted", which had previously been released only in extremely limited quantities as a physical 12-inch single several weeks earlier under the pseudonym of The Cockroaches, which the band had occasionally used in the 1970s to perform secret shows at smaller venues. A second single, "Jealous Lover", was released on 25 June, backed with "Divine Intervention".

Background and release

Foreign Tongues is produced by Andrew Watt. Ronnie Wood first confirmed in late September 2025 that fans would be getting a new Rolling Stones album when he told UK publication The Sun, "Yes, you will be getting a new album next year. It is done." Reports dispelled rumours that it will be their last album, and asserted that the band have written at least 10 more songs for an album after it. The album was first teased as part of a marketing campaign for the single "Rough and Twisted", credited to pseudonym The Cockroaches, which was released on 11 April 2026, including only 1,000 vinyl copies to select records stores. A number of publications had also erroneously announced in the days leading up to its release that a song entitled "Mr Charm" was rumoured to be released as the lead single for a new Rolling Stones album on 11 April 2026. Of the single, Will Hodgkinson of The Times stated that it had "a killer riff, a rambunctious harmonica solo from Mick Jagger, a devil-may-care spirit and the feeling that, six decades on from first crawling out of a notoriously squalid flat in Edith Grove, southwest London, to play the blues in smoke-clogged pubs and clubs along the Surrey Delta, the Rolling Stones are still a chaotic bar band forever on the verge of collapse, happiest in the most low-down dives."

The album primarily consists of new material, with four compositions recorded during the band's last album, Hackney Diamonds, including "Covered In You". The album includes material from band's final session with drummer Charlie Watts in 2021, as confirmed by Jagger at a press conference hosted by the band in New York City. On 25 April 2026, the band posted 20 photographs onto their official Facebook page taken in different countries showing street views with posters announcing the words Foreign Tongues written in different languages, which was later to be revealed as the title of their new studio album. On 2 May 2026, the album's front cover was unveiled, a 2025 painting by American painter Nathaniel Mary Quinn entitled Trinity showing Wood, Richards, and Jagger's "faces seem[ing] to merge into one". The next day, the band teased further details to be released on 5 May.

On 5 May 2026, the band confirmed that Foreign Tongues would be released on 10 July 2026, also launching the album's first single, "In the Stars", on YouTube and other streaming services, and also included the complete audio version of "Rough and Twisted" included on "In the Stars" three and a half weeks after its physical release. The band released a music video for "In the Stars", featuring Odessa A'zion, on 14 May 2026. The album features guest appearances by Paul McCartney, Robert Smith (the Cure), Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), and Steve Winwood and Bruno Mars. The band's recording with Watts occurred during a session in Los Angeles shortly before his death in 2021. Several tracks included on Hackney Diamonds were recorded during the same Los Angeles sessions.

Artwork

The album's cover art is a 2025 pastel drawing by American artist Nathaniel Mary Quinn, whose work has been described as "fractured, dreamlike portraits [which] assemble identity from overlapping memories, emotions, and experiences rather than conventional likeness". Entitled Trinity, it consists of a composite, collage-like surrealist portrait of the three bandmembers' faces "seem[ing] to merge into one". The artwork was made under the art direction of Portuguese illustrator Bráulio Amado and English art director and visual artist Mat Maitland. Possibly inspired by the art of British painter Francis Bacon, it is

reported to be reminiscent of a "better version of the cover to Metallica's 2016 album Hardwired... to Self-Destruct". The artwork has met with a divided reception, with Euronews dismissing it as "retina punishing".

Critical reception

According to the review aggregator Metacritic, Foreign Tongues received "generally favorable reviews" based on a weighted average score of 75 out of 100 from nineteen critic scores. The review aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it a weighted average score of 7.1 out of 10 from twenty-two critic scores. Rather than being a nostalgic retread, Dave Simpson's review in The Guardian described Foreign Tongues as "a thoroughly modern-sounding, occasionally political record that has the band confronting the world around them and their remaining time within it". Simpson highlighted the tracks "Mr. Charm" and "Covered in You" for their railing against "mad mogul Mr Musk" and autocrats respectively. Kory Grow of Rolling Stone stated the album "continue[s] their late-career winning streak", finding it to be superior to Hackney Diamonds. Grow praised the record for being "more guitar-centric and holistically Stones-y" than its predecessor, stating that while the production is "a little overly slick at times", it mostly "stays faithful to the Stones' signature sound, or at least Watts' idea of how the Stones should sound".