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The Rolling Stones release new song 'Rough and Twisted' under alias ahead of next album
13 April 2026, 11:02
The Cockroaches sound awfully familiar.
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The Rolling Stones have long been teasing a follow-up to 2023's acclaimed comeback album Hackney Diamonds, and they have now released their new single - but with a twist.
After a mysterious poster campaign, the song 'Rough and Twisted' was made available on April 11 as a scarce white label vinyl-only release under the name The Cockroaches.
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The flyposters around London had included a QR code taking fans to a website that features not just T-shirts reading "Who the f**k are The Cockroaches" but also a list of decimal degrees map coordinates.
It turned out that these directions would take you to record shops selling the rare vinyl copy of the new song.
And despite the label only reading The Cockroaches (an occasional alias for the Stones' secret gigs), the snippet on the band's Instagram video reveals the unmistakable sound of Keith Richards' guitar and, just before the end, Mick Jagger's vocal.
An article in The Times confirmed what was obvious. This was the new Rolling Stones single.
“You just took me to a flyblown town in the middle of nowhere," Jagger sings. "The smell was acrid and toxic. Couldn’t breathe the air.”
The song, and its as-yet untitled parent album have been produced by Andrew Watt, who recorded Hackney Diamonds with the band.
Reports had suggested that the band's 25th album would be called Foreign Tongues, but those same rumours had suggested the comeback song would be called 'Mr Charm' so that should probably be taken with a pinch of salt.
Hackney Diamonds was the Rolling Stones' first album since 2016's Blue & Lonesome and their first of newly- written material since 2005's A Bigger Bang.
Led by the single 'Angry', it topped the UK albums chart, went to number three in the US and won rave reviews.
