Rolling Stones: Let It Bleed (London NPS4)

THERE'S NOTHING mysterious about the new Stones album and that's as it should be. Like the Stones themselves, it's all right there, readily accessible to all of Us (if not to Them). And, exactly because it's so accessible, it doesn't tell us anything new about the Stones; it merely reaffirms our knowledge and suspicions about what is probably the best rock and roll band in the world. If the Beatles are the master brain-surgeons of rock, the Stones are its genius general practitioners.