The Rolling Stones will release their first new studio album in more than ten years in December.
The British rock royalty will release Blue & Lonesome, a 12-song album of blues classics, on December 2, the band announced Thursday.
The album will be the band’s first studio effort since 2005’s A Bigger Bang.
The Stones recorded the new album in just three days in West London’s British Grove Studios, using no overdubs and with the full band — Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts, plus frequent collaborators Chuck Leavell, Matt Clifford and Daryl Jones — all on board, according to a press release.
The band dropped a teaser for the Little Walter song “Just Your Fool,” which appears on the album, on YouTube Thursday.
“This album is manifest testament to the purity of their love for making music, and the blues is, for the Stones, the fountainhead of everything they do,” producer Don Was said in a statement announcing the album.
Blues legend Eric Clapton sits in on two tracks on Blue & Lonesome, including a cover of Little Johnny Taylor’s “Everybody Knows About My Good Thing” and on Willie Dixon’s “I Can’t Quit You Baby.” Clapton was reportedly recording a project of his own in an adjacent studio and was invited to sit in by the band.
The Stones celebrated the announcement of the album by projecting a new blue-hued riff of their iconic lips logo onto buildings in London Wednesday night.
The new album comes as the Stones gear up to play the Desert Trip music festival in Indio, California this weekend alongside other iconic rock acts including Paul McCartney, The Who, Neil Young, Roger Waters and Bob Dylan.
Blue & Lonesome will be released December 2 on Interscope Records. Pre-orders are underway on the band’s website.
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