Somehow I got hold of ten songs that leaked out on the internet last year, what is known to be Axl Rose's upcoming album under the Guns N' Roses flag.
First off, I'd like to state that I am a GNR fan, who listened to them already back in 1987. Even though I mostly then listened to early hip hop, punkfunk and bands like Big Audio Dynamite. This is to explain that I am not a metalhead, but can appreciate good music of various genres. I loved GNR's early music, before the "Use Your Illusion"-albums, when they were this gritty Rock'n'roll band that sounded fantastic, and looked just too cool for any school whatsoever. The Illusion-albums were overproduced for my liking, with too many synths.
So, what I have is not the final album, but ten songs, that is definitely with Axl Rose on vocals, and are rumoured to be the not yet completed album. The cover picture shown here is something I found on the net, probably not the final cover (I hope, it is quite dodgy).
Anyway, the album has been in the making for thirteen years, and the title has been puzzling, to say the least. China is anything but a democracy, so what's up with that? There is one track called "Chinese Democracy", that seems to be critical of the Chinese government. The lyrics are a bit vague but disapproves of an Iron fist beating up the people. Amazing, what a coming of age for a guy who mostly sang about drugs and encounters with nasty women on Sunset Strip!
So is it a theme album? No, the songs are on various subjects, and Chinese Democracy is probably a name that got tagged onto the album early on. A guess is that Axl saw the events with the students and the tanks on Tianmen Square, and somehow got engaged.
The first song is called IRS. It has already been used in Harley-commercials, so it's an official GNR-song. Of course Axl would sing about IRS, the US tax authoirities, being a rock millionaire, he is probably not the most eager tax payer. An okay song however, with great guitar. Super-guitarist Buckethead worked with Axl for a few years, it might be him playing. The soft parts sound a bit like the Eagles! This is grown up rock, it's okay, but nothing like the fresh off the LA-streets early GNR.
The second is "Chinese Democracy". A hard rocker also, sounds allright, very heavy guitars, kind of the same sound as Nirvana on "Smells..." mixed with Soundgarden at their best. It's a good one, and kudos to Axl for saying something political.
Song three is called "Better". Is it? The guitarplaying is amazing. Buckethead? The guitar really rocks like some Tom Morello on fire. The tuffest guitar in a long time! The song is pretty strong, I'd say this could work fine in a car stereo. A grower. Axl sings whiny in the beginning and end. Pretty cool!
"There Was A Time" is entry four. Begins a bit slow, but soon starts rockin' hard. The softens up, lots of strings, this one is pretty good too, a bit melodramatic. Then a Bowiesque stick in the middle with strings and piano. A break up-song, get your lighters up! I thought" November Rain" sucked, This one is way better, but in the same vein. Goes on a bit long.
"Madagascar" is a funny name for a GNR song. Starts out with horns and strings. Slow tempo, in the beginning Axl sounds a bit like Swedish viking-singer Nordman. The lyrics is about being lost on a ship in a storm, really sad stuff. Pretty silly song, still an okay ballad, if you're into that. A cool break comes after a while, with what sounds like Martin Luther King samples mixed with lots of voicovers. Suddenly the song got much better, but soon it goes back to the lost ship stuff again.
"The Blues" starts out with a happy little piano Elton John-stylee. The lyrics are about someone Axl loved who is gone, but he keeps thinking of her every day. He's got the blues, but the song is pretty happy anyway. It's got this chirpy 70's vibe, with lots of strings and gazillions of overdubs. Wall of sound! Some guitar solo overlays gets it a little bit rockish. Okay song, very retro, especially if you like pompous November Rain-Axl.
"Catcher In The Rye" is also very 70's retro, with that wall of sound again. Maybe Axl got together with Phil Spector? Could be an interesting combo however! The song never really takes off, so I wouldn't really say it is that good. It's a very nice and soft Axl you're hearing here, with la-la-choruses and all. Where's the rock?
"Oh My God" is where the rock is at! He must have listened to Marilyn Manson one day, and said to himself: Hey, I can do that harder, faster, more evil! And he was right. This is a hard, fast rocker with the patented bad day-Axl lyrics, where he is just the most pissed off person in the world. Fun!
"Riyadh And The Bedouins" is a live uptake of a quite strange song in the same style as "Oh My God", but wit extremely high pitched singing. This a bad live uptake, but properly produced, this is probably good. Great guitarplaying (Buckethead?). The lyrics are very confusing, one can tell Axl's been working on this album a long time, since some songs have these "ethnic" themes.
"Silk Worms" is also a live uptake, in the beginning Axl introduces the song, and a Chinese woman translates, she doesn't have a clue. Anyway, Dizzy is in it! Funny! The song is a rocker, has some synths in it, there was talk about Axl doing "Industrial" music, this could be it. The singing sounds like John Lydon (Sex Pistols), probably Izzy! The chorus goes "What can I do, with a bitch like you". It's a breakup song, and Axl was in a bad mood writing this song.
All in all I would say this is going to be a surprisingly good album, with more than half of the songs really good. Some lame efforts, but hey, GNR didn't produce hits all the time either. Axl still has the coolest voice in hard rock. Too bad he has such a hard time releasing the songs, they're not THAT much of a big deal. But if you ask this blogger, he's positively surprised. Now all one could wish for is a reunion with the original GNR, or that Slash could find a decent singer. One that sounds like the cassette tape ending's whiny noise, like when he first heard Axl's voice, and thought there was something wrong with the cassette tape.
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