Mojo - The Music Magazine

THE STATISTICS SPEAK for themselves. 14 years, 14 studios, a minimum of five producers, at least the same amount of guitarists, a revolving door of session players and mind-boggling sums of money. But ultimately, Chinese Democracy, the first new album of original songs to appear under the Guns N' Roses banner since 1991, is the story of one man. Axl Rose, the wayward kid from Indiana turned razorblade-voiced global rock icon and one of the last decade's most mysterious recluses, has finally put his tools down. The saga is over.

Phil Alexander, MOJO's Editor-In-Chief, will be bringing you the full MOJO analysis very soon, but since we've just heard the thing, we thought it only fair to give you our immediate impressions of the record most thought had been assigned to the archive of legendary might-have-beens – along with The Beach Boys’ Smile and that Johnny Marr/Ian McCulloch record they left in the back of a cab.

First impressions are of an overwhelming avalanche of activity (ideas, sounds, stuff) – as much as might conceivably be stuffed into a 14-track rock album – and a surprisingly up-to-date sound.

1. Chinese Democracy
A sprinkling of background voices and the sound of street-side rattle begin a song ignited by the sort of propellant, processed guitar incisions that saturate all of the album's full-tilt offerings. Here is the mechanised underbelly of Rose's 21st Century debut. "All I've got is precious time," he sings.

2. Shackler's Revenge
Axl harmonises with himself as a furious wall of pitch-shifting guitars bite into a Foo Fighters-esque rumble that is so jammed-packed full of overdubs, it's a wonder he manages to maintain any structure whatsoever. Released with the new instalment of the mega-selling Rock Band video game, could this also be a dig at his old sparring partner Slash? "Don't ever try to tell me, how much you care for me / Don't ever try to tell me, how you were there for me," he growls.

3. Better
"This melody inside of me still searches for solution". The verse is a pop-rock groove that evokes Pacific nights and sunset drives. The chorus on the other hand is a pulverising minor-key rant augmented by more trilling axe-work and a final guitar solo surely ear-marked for one-time Chinese Democracy contributor Brian May. (Queen's guitarist ruminates on Axl' s latest halfway down the page).

4. Street Of Dreams
Played live during Guns N'Roses most recent outings and led by Axl’s long-serving piano man Dizzy Reed, this gargantuan, Jim Steinman-flavoured ballad was originally called The Blues. November Rain fans should be queuing around the block.

5. If the World
A break-beat intro; a sparse melody punctuated by a clutch of power chord shimmies and a Spanish flavoured acoustic guitar flourish that immediately reminded your correspondent of Use Your Illusion I’s Double Talkin' Jive.

6. There Was A Time
Almost 7 minutes long, this is one of Chinese Democracy's defining moments. "It was a bargain for the summer,” rues Axl, “And I thought I had it all". Phalanxes of guitars engage in panoramic battle with a gloriously histrionic vocal – he’s lost none of his power, or he hadn’t at whatever point in the last 14 years he recorded this – before it signs off with a burst of an unnecessarily digitised choir.

7. Catcher N' The Rye
Axl's nod to J.D Salinger's outsider opus is split into sections that could quite happily soundtrack the credit sequence to a frat-boy rom-com. Fans of Guns’ most melodic offerings should find solace here. Unsurprising to see Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker’s name on the credits.

8. Scraped
An impenetrable, gothic head-mess of damaged distortion and chordal-riff guitars, this is one of the album's most brutal tracks.

9. Riad N' Bedouins
In my notes I wrote the word “defibrillator”. A wired and awakening sound (the army of guitars, the piercing high notes) that's followed by Axl Rose screaming defiant epithets such as: “I don't give a fuck about this ’cos I’m crazy!”

10. Sorry
Electro-pulsing, Pink Floyd-esque ballad that throws up this chorus-opening: “I'm sorry for you / Not sorry for me”, before opening out into a Gilmouresque guitar solo.

11. I.R.S.
Axl: “Gonna call the president / Gonna call a private eye / Gonna get the IRS / Gonna need the FBI”. The man's paranoia is made explicit through another wall of dense guitars and scattershot solos.

12. Madagascar
A processional anthem replete with excerpts from Martin Luther King's I Had A Dream speech, this is a track that's been battered around since the late '90s (see the band's MTV performance here . Once again we find Axl betrayed, imploring, "Forgive them that teared (sic) down my soul / Bless them that they might grow old / And free them so that they may know / That it's never too late". Did he pen these lyrics as he saw Guns fall apart in the mid-‘90s? It’s all a bit biblical.

13. This I Love
Axl Rose the record-head. Witness the melancholic, Elton John-style piano and the soaring verses. It’s a heraldic drama straight from the fantasyland of Queen II and quite possibly the most heartfelt song on the record. Everything he's been striving for since Use Your Illusion II's Estranged. Andrew Lloyd-Webber wouldn't balk at this.

14. Prostitute
Chinese Democracy ends as it begins in grand, posturing style. “I’ve got a message for you,” sings the man that for so long has refused to say a word. Those tinny, break-beat drums appear again, as do layer upon layer of furiously overdriven guitars. One final ambient wash of organ and then, just like that, he’s gone.

So there it is. A brash, unashamedly super-sized cacophony of songs that are overdubbed to hell, but occasionally hint at the monolithic power Axl has been chasing all these years. If his voice – that vitriolic screeeeeech – often sounds like it's making its way back from a time when the original line-up of the band ruled the world, perhaps that was inevitable.

By Ross Bennett