Guns 'n' Roses – Chinese Democracy :review

by Kerry Gold
Rating: 4/5


Download: Better, There Was a Time, Catcher In the Rye, Scraped

For all the talk around this album, for the 15 or so years it's taken for Axl Rose to get it together to nail down these 14 tracks, you'd think he'd torn up the rock ‘n' roll blueprint and rewritten it.

It turns out, of course, that he hasn't, but the result is mercifully kind to Rose, who went through what has to be one of the most perfectionist-driven creative rolls to make a record that will beat out any self-torture even Lucinda Williams might have inflicted upon herself. Dudes will rejoice for the preposterously big and pretentiously guitar-fuelled sound that dominates this release, with featured rolls for the likes of Brian May for intensely wiry licks and soft rock atmosphere of Catcher In the Rye (a great, bust-the-roof-off song). He does better on Better, with its skittering beats and beefy hooks. There Was a Time opens with a children's choir then slides into Rose's serviceable rock vocal for a and anvil-heavy guitar chords, making for one of the more interesting songs. And then Scraped is a fascinating rock-god tribute to weirdness that is what heavy hitting rock is all about – eccentricity. And Rose possesses it in spades.