THIS album shows these rock dinosaurs are in fine form despite not producing anything particularly worthwhile since the seventies and having a collective age of about 527.

Three decades on and the world's most debauched pensioners haven't managed to re-create the sound of their heyday, but A Bigger Bang is not the nail in the coffin some might have expected.

The album opens in spectacular style with Rough Justice, a winning formula of thumping drums and frantic slide guitar, topped off with buckets of charisma from Sir Mick Jagger.

Back of My Hand is bluesy, old-school Stones at their best and Oh No Not You Again and Look What the Cat Dragged In rage along at breakneck speed and are worthy of standing alongside the likes of It's Only Rock and Roll as Stones anthems.

The best of the lot is Keith Richards' haunting ballad This Place Is Empty, closely followed by Back of My Hand and Laugh I Nearly Died.

The hit and miss awards go to the rather pointless Driving Too Fast and the anti-George W Bush rant of Sweet Neo Con. The album would have been stronger without them.

A Bigger Bang is witty, humorous and full of spirit.

While there's nothing new here, it's not the embarrassment many feared it would be - for there's certainly life in these aging rockers yet.

MC