A day some thought would never arrive is here: the debut album by Guns N’ Roses Mark II has finally found its way into the wild. Let’s get the unrealistic expectations out of the way first: no, it’s not as good as Appetite For Destruction, nor either of the Use Your Illusion discs, and no album short of a career-defining masterpiece could really justify the record’s protracted gestation period. Yes, it’s basically an Axl Rose solo album, but frankly to release this under any name but GNR — no matter how technically inaccurate — would be flushing millions of sales down the drain, and that would be stupid.
Suffice to say Chinese Democracy is not a masterpiece, nor does it accomplish the nigh-impossible task of matching up to the work of an almost completely different band from a lifetime ago. That said, it is a record that deserves to be evaluated on its own merits, which is what I’ll attempt to do here as much as is humanly possible.
The album doesn’t flow particularly well, betraying its fragmented genesis — songs lurch this way and that in ADD fashion, rarely settling into any particular groove for too long and frequently introducing distracting effects and instrumentation. Several WTF moments punctuate the disc (particularly the bizarre acapella intro to “Scraped”) and definitely burst any remaining illusion that this could be the product of an actual band rather than a single overwhelming force of ego.
Speaking of whom, Axl is in fairly good voice throughout, though it’s somewhat disconcerting to hear obvious use of autotune processing throughout the record. He also tends to emphasize the melodic aspects of his singing above raw power, his true strength, and it does get a bit wearying over the course of the album’s 71-minute length — one keeps hoping for the band to hit more on the heavy rock groove and less on the over-arranged Queen ballad side.
Altogether, while no, Chinese Democracy is not a classic for the ages or what one would maybe hope for from one of the biggest rock bands in the world, it’s a pretty solid record, on a par with a good Alice Cooper album, and will likely hold up for several listens even if it’s not likely to become a favorite. It’s hard to picture anyone singing any of these songs at karaoke night, but it’s equally difficult to picture a large percentage of longtime Guns N’ Roses fans being completely dissatisfied with this album. More importantly, now that Axl has broken the dam, perhaps he can get the next one out in a more reasonable amount of time and perhaps avoid the painfully labored-over, yeah-let’s-throw-the-kitchen-sink-in-too vibe that’s substantially in evidence here.
Some spontaneity would be a welcome novelty for the followup. And hey, how about some straight-ahead, flat-out rockers? Maybe listen to more AC/DC and less Queen. That’s be nice.
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