After Mick Jagger's first solo album (she's the boss), after Dirty Work, the Stones got together and did a pretty good album.

Mixed Emotions and Rock and a Hard Place were the most immediate hits of that record. But they're not necessarily the best songs. Continental Drift is an expected piece from the Stones and one which testifies how broad they can be when they want to.

The best song in the album - recorded live in Stripped few years later and now a staple in most live performances by the Stones - is Slipping Away. It's a great great song. It's very basic and yet very intriguing. It's - possibly - a turning point in Keith Richards' songwriting. It opened a new line of songs -- Losing My Touch (in Forty Licks); The worst as well as thru and thru (voodoo lounge); thief in the night (bridges to babylon)--

that has expended the Stones'musical vocabulary.

It's a nice comeback.

Steel Wheels is the sound of a band rediscovering the power of their musical interplay and the sound of them maybe having FUN and surpirsing themselves for the first time since at least Some Girls.

Listen to the attack of Keith's and Ron's (and sometimes Mick's!) guitars - they are crackling. Lest anyone mistake that any other drummer can fill the Stones drumstool, Charlie's beats are at their toughest and most driving. Even Bill sounds great - listen to his parts on "Rock and A Hard Place" - excellent, effortless work. Tthe fear that maybe they might never play together again, and then discovering themselves at this oasis (with their sweetest payday to date clearly in sight) has the band sounding at their most exuberant (and as a sside note the wuick deadline they'd imposed upon themselves is also working in their favor - on previous discs, you can tell that they're on Take 65. When you ahve a tour to start in six weeks, yeah, let's nail this song WQUICK.). The band plays as fluidly and gracefully - if not moreso - on this album as any that bears their name.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the bulk of the material. Most of the songs sound like the Stones giving the audience what they think it wants. "Sad Sad Sad", "Rock and a Hard Place", "Can't Be Seen" all sound like Stones-by-numbers, overly-familiar territory for the band and the listener. A couple of the songs sound like the Stones trying to compete (badly) with the-then-flavor-of-the-month Guns'n'Roses. The Stones do shine on a couple of songs on the second side: "Almost Hear You Sigh" is elegant, "Break the Spell" is spooky, "Speed of Light", a foray into world music, is the most daring thing on the album, and Keith's closing ballad, "Slipping Away" is eloquent.

But as good as the grooves on these songs are, and though Jagger's vocals are his most polished and best since Tattoo You, the lyrics are among the weakest - scratch that - ARE the weakest in the Stones canon. And no mistake - songs like "Jack Flash", "Shattered", even his solo "War Baby" are GREAT lyrics. Here the closest thing Jagger gets to attitude is "Mixed Emotions" "Get off the fence/It's creasing your butt". "Blinded By Love" - uh, it's just bad and let's leave it at that. Even the aforementioned "Speed of Light" suffers from mundanxce lyrics - essentially it's just a mantra over and over of "Love comes at the speed of light" - thanks, Mick, so does my monthly bill from Visa.

In fact, the best lyric on the album is Keith's:

All I want is ecstacy

But I ain't gettin' much

Just gettin' off on misery

It seems I've lost my touch

Sentiments that kind of fit how I feel about this album: You really want it to work, and yeah, you are finding the grooves, but you really want it to work moreso than it actually is.

SONGS: B-

LYRICS: C

PERFORMANCE: A

PROOF THAT ANYNE CAN WORK OUT THEIR DIFFERECES FOR 100 MILLION DOLLARS: A++++