Band:	Guns N' Roses
Album:	Chinese Democracy
Style:	Hard rock
Release date:	November 21, 2008
Guest review by:	Doc G.

01. Chinese Democracy
02. Shackler's Revenge
03. Better
04. Street Of Dreams
05. If The World
06. There Was A Time
07. Catcher In The Rye
08. Scraped
09. Riad N' The Bedouins
10. Sorry
11. I.R.S.
12. Madagascar
13. This I Love
14. Prostitute

Ok, a decade and a half, millions of dollars, multiple band members and associated musicians input - ignoring these stats is a hard thing to do while approaching this album, but let's give it a shot. Let's keep in mind the iconic figures that were once part of this band are long gone. This is no longer Slash, Duff, and Izzy's band, this is Axl's album - like it or not. So as a disclaimer I'm looking at this album as a stand-alone project, avoiding any comparisons to what once was.

The album opens up with a very effective fade-in, then a perfect kick-off riff which almost says "drop what you're doing and look this way"; unfortunately the remainder of the track is fairly bland aside from a few eye-popping solos. The interesting compositions and guitar work come in on the track to follow and continue throughout the album with a few cheesy ballads thrown in. The variation in this album is incredible, pulling influences in from far too many genres to list, which can be off putting for many when it comes to songs that have R'n'B rhythms, 'If The World' being the biggest example. The guitar work is simply incredible as far as technicality goes, but looking at the line-up Axl has hired it's no surprise. Much of the off-the-wall compositions and guitar work has to be credited to Buckethead, who (to the best of my knowledge) has never done anything predictable or typical. To top everything off, Axl shows he's still got a very capable vocal range, as well as a good ear for exceptional vocal harmonies.

This is an interesting album - dynamic, varied and experimental; something that doesn't exactly work out a lot of the time. Think of it this way: while running all over the park, you're bound to step in some dog crap. Whilst dabbling in many genres, the ballads, (to put it lightly) for the most part are pure pop shit. Take 'Street Of Dreams' as the best example, it sounds suspiciously like Vanessa Carlton's 'A Thousand Miles', in other words, not something you want on a hard rock album. Though the biggest problem with album is definitely the overproduction (yeah, yeah, 15 years in production, quit laughing). The industrial influenced songs like 'Shackler's Revenge' and 'Scraped' fit well with the pristine production, but many really well written songs seem to lose power because they are so glossed over from the meticulous production.

Overall it's not a bad album, nothing great, and certainly not worth the circumstances surrounding it, but interesting nonetheless.