The rock group are back with a new album filled with blues covers – but what have critics been saying about it? 

The Guardian: **** “Despite the title, and against the odds, it is an album full of joy.”

Rolling Stone.com: **** 1/2 “Blue and Lonesome is not a record of mere returning, a look back at how it all started.”

NME.com: **** “Blue & Lonesome’ is proof that old dogs don’t always have need of new tricks.”

The Financial Times: **** “what really lifts the album beyond gnarly nostalgia is Mick Jagger’s fabulously over-the-top performance.”

The Metro: “This isn’t so much an album pushing The Rolling Stones forward, but a thrilling rediscovery of what makes them tick in the first place.”

Evening Standard: **** “Fuelled by Mick Jagger’s harmonica and feral growl clashing with Keith Richards’ gritty guitar, it’s less the sound of old men enjoying themselves, more the sound of revitalised men doing what they always wanted.”

The Independent: **** “what impresses most about Blue & Lonesome is Mick Jagger, who really animates these songs.”

All Music: **** 1/2 “it’s artistically satisfying because it’s the Rolling Stones allowing themselves to simply lay back and play for sheer enjoyment. It’s a rare thing that will likely seem all the more valuable over the years.”

Drowned in Sound: “there is a lovely, childish innocence to how much fun you can hear them having on this record, revisiting the music that once made them dream of making music their life’s work.”

Best Classic Bands.com: “The blues is a language, one in which the Rolling Stones demonstrated their fluency a very long time ago. Perhaps they hadn’t seen a need to speak it very often as their lives and art went in other directions, but Blue & Lonesome is proof that the lessons paid off.”

Blue & Lonesome is available to buy and download through Amazon now.