View The Review
8 out of 10
OK, so as you probably know by now, this is the first release of original music by Guns n' Roses for 17 years. And having listened to the album now quite a few times through, I still don't know what to make of it? It seems that Axl, and let's face it, it is just Axl now (I don't think Dizzy Reed counts), anyway as I was saying it seems that Axl has listened to a lot of styles of music in those years and tried to cram as much into this album as possible. There's hip hop beats, smooth Santana-esque ballads, Nu-Metal! and of course the ballsy classic rock which made Gn'R famous in the first place.
One thing that can be said for the songs is that they are all very memorable, whilst listening to it with my Wife she picked up on the words and melodies extremely quickly. She also said that if she were 16 again that this would be great to listen to in her room. But she's not 16 anymore and maybe this is who this album will actually appeal to, those late twenty-something's wanting to relive their teen years. And speaking of 16 year olds, some of the lyrics sound as they that's who they were written by.
I think one of the things about this album is that, and this really is an understatement, Axl took too long and worked on it too much. Looking at the album inlay, each song had about Five guitarists working on them, and why is a sub-bass necessary exactly? The amount of time Guns n' Roses spent on this album it should have been so much more. Finally, I don't think I ever really got to grips with Axl's vocal style and it positively grates on some of the songs, but you can almost hear when his vocal style had to change to be able to sing. None so much more prevalent than on title track and single Chinese Democracy where he backs himself in the old style but lets the new one take centre stage,
Even though I seemed to have panned the album in this review and can't believe the amount of over production that has gone into it. I still can't help but admire what has been produced, which is some down right catchy songs with great melodies.
Listen: www.myspace.com/gunsnroses
Tracklist:
1. Chinese Democracy
2. Shackler's Revenge
3. Better
4. Street if Dreams
5. If the World
6. There Was a Time
7. Catcher in the Rye
8. Scraped
9. Riad n' the Bedouins
10. Sorry
11. I.R.S.
12. Madagascar
13. This I Love
14. Prostitute
No comments:
Post a Comment