Posted: December 4th, 2008
Contributed By: Mike

	Purchase @ Best Buy Release Date: November 23, 2008
	Guns N’ Roses is: Axl Rose (Vocals) Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal (Guitar) Richard Fortus (Guitar) Tommy Stinson (Bass) Dizzy Reed (Keyboards, Piano) Chris Pitman (Keyboards, Programming) Frank Ferrer (Drums)

Overview: If I was to chronicle all the events leading up to the release of this album this would be the longest overview to any album ever reviewed on this site. After ‘The Spaghetti Incident?‘ was released in 1993 most of the members of Guns N’ Roses began leaving the band. In 1999 the first new original Guns N’ Roses song since 1991 was released. The track “Oh My God” was released on the End Of Days movie soundtrack. Many people thought this meant that a new album release was imminent. Little did the poor GNR fans know they had to wait nearly 10 more years to get their hands on ‘Chinese Democracy‘. Since their last album was released in 1993 band members have come and gone, songs have leaked to the internet, the band toured a little, more songs leaked to the internet and eventually millions of dollars and 15 years later the new Guns N’ Roses album in finally in stores.

The Good: The debate will rage on forever and many will agree that this should have been an Axl Rose solo album and not a Guns N’ Roses album. But in Axl’s defense these new songs still sound like Guns N’ Roses (excluding the industrial sounding Shackler’s Revenge). While reviews of Axl’s live performances as of late have been mostly sub par his voice sounds great on this album. He hits the high notes well and doesn’t sound at all like he’s lost a step. People’s main complaint about this band is that it does not feature Slash. No need to worry folks cause the guitars on this album are fantastic. Buckethead and Robin Finck do a great job on the guitar. Slash has been criticized for his boring and uninventive guitar solos on the most recent Velvet Revolver album but you don’t get any of that here as this album features a bunch of standout guitar solos and overall guitar work that gives this album a unique sound and helps all the tracks differentiate from one other while retaining a somewhat similar sound. For an album that has a revolving door of musicians on it, it’s good that this CD doesn’t sound like it was made by a bunch of different bands with the same singer. The style remains unique but every song is on the same page and sounds like they all belong together.

There are a number of standout tracks on this album. Let’s start off with the best song on the album, “There Was A Time”. This song will be absolutely huge when it starts playing on the radio. The song just has an epic feel to it, similar to a track like “Estranged”. “Madagascar” is another fantastic track and it was cool to hear a little sound bite with the women from “Civil War” saying the intro to that song with “what we’ve got here is failure to communicate”. “This I Love” is the big ballad for this album, featuring some great piano playing by Axl and like other Guns N’ Roses ballads it is still a solid song to crank on the radio and it doesn’t get to sappy or slow and drag the song down. The industrial sounding “Shackler’s Revenge” is a different sounding GNR song, a little reminiscent of the old GNR song “Oh My God”. The second single “Better” has a good change of being the breakout hit for this album. A unique grinding sounding guitar riff played at the beginning and during other parts in the song makes it one of the catchier songs that will have a good chance of appealing to the crowd listening on the radio.

Most people have probably heard leaked versions of some of these songs in the years leading up to the albums release but without a doubt the songs sound a lot better on this album. The sound quality is obviously better and little improvements here and there give these songs new life. Even if you’ve already been listening to songs like “I.R.S.”, “There Was A Time” and “Madagascar” for the past few years they sound a lot better on this album and you’ll be enjoying them as if you’ve never heard them before.

The Bad: People hoping that this album will have a few big hits on it that will top old GNR songs will be disappointed to know that while there are some truly great songs on here, very few if any songs on this disc top any of the more popular songs from the old days of GNR and when the dust has settled on this album and you think of great Guns N’ Roses songs the first 5 songs you think of will probably still be from old GNR albums. You also have to question what they were thinking making “Chinese Democracy” the first single. It’s a decent song but still one of the weaker tracks on the album, there would have been a bunch of better choices for the first single.

Bottomline: The wait is finally over. Hell has frozen over. Pigs have been spotted flying and a lucky few of us managed to successfully battle through the messed up Dr. Pepper site and gotten a free drink. The question everyone wants to know is was the wait worth it and in my opinion it was. Bitter, old Guns N’ Roses fans need to accept the fact that there are musicians out there that are just as talented as the ones who made the critically acclaimed ‘Appetite For Destruction‘. And everybody who contributed to this album did a terrific job. This CD doesn’t top ‘Appetite For Destruction‘ but it rivals the ‘Use Your Illusion‘ albums as the seconds best GNR album ever. As for living up to the hype, nothing this many years in the making could possibly live up to the hype but ‘Chinese Democracy‘ is still a solid album that stays consistent throughout and is one of the better albums of 2008.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10