Guns N Roses - Chinese Democracy

Lead Vocals – Axl Rose

Now prepare for the ins and outs of the rest for the lineup (and even then I wonder if it’ll change over the coming years)!
 
Robin Finck – lead guitars on all tracks; keyboards on tracks 3 and 5; guitar solos on tracks 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 11, and 13.
Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal – lead guitars on all tracks; guitar solos on tracks 2, 7, 8, and 9
Buckethead – lead guitars on all tracks except 7 and 13; guitar solos on tracks 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 14.
Richard Fortus – guitars on tracks 1, 3, 4, 6 and 14
Tommy Stinson – bass on all tracks except 5. 
Chris Pitman – sub-bass on all tracks except 7.
Bryan "Brain" Mantia – drums on all tracks except 1.
Frank Ferrer – drums on tracks 1, 3, 5, 6 and 11.
Dizzy Reed – keyboards on tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 14
Josh Freese – drum arrangements on tracks 4, 6, 9 and 14

Axl Rose was damned if he finished Chinese Democracy, and he was damned if he didn’t. A situation that has been contrived by both himself and his record company’s contractual requirements, and the fans have been patiently waiting since 1993's "The Spaghetti Incident?", was it worth it?
 
I’m really not convinced. I’ve listened to it a few times, and I can only really remember one song, “I.R.S”. I can however remember every single song from Appetite, and I know every guitar solo before it’s playing, and that’s the difference.
 
I don’t know if I was expecting Appetite for Destruction 2, or something entirely new. Ok, so it has taken years for the work to come to fruition, but all that really matters is the final product, right? There is no doubt in my mind that the personnel drafted in to complete this monstrous project are great musicians, and if it had any other name on it asides that of Guns ‘N’ Roses you wonder what it’s reception would have been like. And what is it like…
 
It’s “OK”.
 
Seriously, that’s it. It’s “ok”. The songs aren’t that bad, and there are moments you hear Axl at his best, only for it to disappear a few moments later. Some of the guitar solos just start to show promise, almost along the lines of that Slash “rawk” signature style, only for it to take a detour into overwiddly hyperdrive that just seems to lose it, and the same goes for some of the rhythm work too. A great example of this is the 8th track on the album, “Scraped”. It’s got that typical G ‘n’ R attack on the guitars with some nice melodic choruses, but the moment you really start to believe that Axl has got it spot on is right at the end, literally the last 15 seconds or so of that rhythm guitar hammering away, almost like the spirit of Appetite had hit back with a vengeance, and then it’s gone!
 
AAARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!
 
Rather oddly, I quite like the song, “Sorry”, some of it seems to just work for me with some lovely blues guitar solos, a loping main riff, and no real need to prove itself. In my humble opinion this should have been the first single released from the album, and not Chinese Democracy with it’s ridiculous 1 minute worth of intro atmospherics! Now, “I.R.S”, that really is a great song, a mean dark build up with some nice working of the vocal lines.
 
For old G ’n’ R fans it won’t be G ’n’ R, for new fans, it might not stand out from their CD collection enough. It’s certainly not 16 years worth of “awesome”.
 
So should you buy it? Sure, go ahead, just please please please don’t pay full price for it!
 
And here’s a thought for you, Sebastian Bach ex Skid Row frontman and reportedly a close friend of Axl’s (who by the way is 46 now), has been quoted as saying that Chinese Democracy was intended as the first instalment of a trilogy. So if this is the Fellowship of the Ring, let’s hope “Return of the King” kicks some eh!?