Music Appreciation

A secret song, a new album — why it’s going to be a Rolling Stones summer
If a new track from ‘the Cockroaches’ sounds awfully like Mick Jagger, that’s because it is. Will Hodgkinson reports on the Stones’ latest comeback — and asks whether they will play live again

Will Hodgkinson, Chief Rock and Pop Critic
Thursday April 09 2026, 10.00pm BST, The Times


On Thursday morning someone — let’s call him a crazy fan — played me a song by a mysterious band called the Cockroaches. This came after posters for the group, named after a legendarily hardy insect, appeared around Camden Town, north London. Getting going with an electric blues riff not a million miles from the one that starts up Start Me Up by the Rolling Stones, Rough and Twisted builds with a bit of soloing from a second guitar, a primeval thud from the drums and the unmistakable yowl of one of the most famous singers in the world. He’s asking for someone to drive him down a rough and twisted road all the way to Puerto Rico, where the tide ebbs and flows and you do feel that something sexual may be happening along the way. Yes, if you haven’t guessed already, ol’ Rubber Lips and the gang are back.

Rough and Twisted, available as a vinyl-only “white label” release from April 11, is classic Stones: 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. As Jagger sings, “You just took me to a flyblown town in the middle of nowhere. The smell was acrid and toxic. Couldn’t breathe the air.”

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Rough and Twisted paves the way for an as-yet-unnamed Rolling Stones album coming out in July. Like 2023’s Hackney Diamonds, it was recorded with Andrew Watt. The 35-year-old New Yorker started out playing guitar and co-songwriting for pop acts such as Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus but his love of classic rock led to him producing albums by Ozzy Osbourne and Iggy Pop before falling into the Stones camp.

When I spoke to the Stones in 2023 they all said Watt’s enthusiasm was galvanising. It explains why he has been asked back — that and the fact that Hackney Diamonds was their biggest commercial and critical hit in years, going to No 1 in 20 countries and selling more than a million copies. Watt has also produced a forthcoming Paul McCartney album, due for release in late May. This means that in the absence of Glastonbury this year, a Beatle and the Stones will be dominating the summer music schedule, bringing a much-needed dose of Sixties spirit to our less than love-infused modern age.

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