Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 24/11/08
Label: Polydor

At last. Fifteen years and almost as many million dollars in studio time since the lacklustre punk covers album "The Spaghetti Incident?", Axl Rose-as-Guns returns with the über-anticipated "Chinese Democracy".

Listening to the record, it's easy to think yourself a Polydor head honcho, called in to hear the rough mixes: "OK guys, it's 14 tracks and 80 minutes long. We need to sequence it properly, get rid of three tracks and send it back for proper mastering." The countless studios, mixing-downs and hired producer hands that have touched these recordings in the last however long have resulted in one of the worst-sounding albums of the 21st century. When a ballad such as "Sorry" outblasts the everything blazing "I.R.S.", heads should roll.

At least this isn't Axl's fault, but his haphazard tracklisting ("Chinese Democracy" plays as though he stuck the closest 15 songs to hand down in the order he found them) does little to guide you through an album largely bereft of any songwriting evidence. Meandering atmospheric intros and outros, with lyrics that often just repeat the same verse ad nauseum, overshadow what could be, at times, shorter, snappier songs. "Better", one of the only non-power ballads to approximate anything near a high-point, starts off promisingly, before a repetitive two minute outro leaves you forgetting where you came in… and it's only five-minutes long. Power ballads such as "There Was A Time" are largely more successful, but principally through the force of Axl's emotive voice, rather than anything approaching "November Rain" grandeur.

For the harder tracks, the revolving cast of musicians seem hired to appropriate Duff's bass lines and Slash's guitar licks, though, again, with little thought given to structure; any of the "riffs" could be transposed across "Catcher In The Rye", "Shackler's Revenge" or "Riad N' The Bedouins". Sloppy and ill-thought-out, the 15-year gestation really rears its head on these, Axl's approximation of "modern" metal sounding like sub-NIN-style industrial rock from, yes, 1993.

He may have legally taken the Guns name in the '90s, but he didn't take all the talent. If he'd make peace with Duff, Izzy, Slash and Steve Adler, a true Guns return would be worth cheering. Given that "Chinese Democracy"'s most ludicrous moment sees him utilise the same "Cool Hand Luke" sample that opened "Illusion II" back in 1991, before a maelstrom of samples peaks with the hubristic appropriation of Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech, setting the stage for Axl's continuing persecution complex to return, we probably won't be seeing anything like good sense coming from him for at least another 15 years.

    by Jason Draper