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- FlashFlood
- Rep: 55
Re: Chinese Democracy official reviews thread
fair to say the album has gotten a good response in boston
BOSTON HERALD
What are the dudes who said Guns N’ Roses doesn’t work without Slash going to do now?
First things first. “Chinese Democracy” is great - you can hear it right now as a free stream on MySpace [website] and buy it Sunday at BestBuy. It’s not “Appetite for Destruction,” but it’s way more consistent than the bloated “Use Your Illusions.”
Forget that we’ve chased the carrot of new G N’ R tunes Axl Rose has cruelly dangled before us for 17 years. Forget that this is likely the most expensive album ever made at a reported $13 million. Forget that the cast from “Appetite” is long gone. Just listen and you’ll hear the awesome opus Rose intended “Illusion” to be. Because Slash, Izzy Stradlin and the rest ruined Rose’s vision of “Illusion,” “Chinese Democracy” is defined by their absence.
“Chinese Democracy” succeeds because Slash is missing. Slash fans need to face facts: the guitarist was never right for Rose (too much Joe Perry, not enough Brian May); post-“Appetite,” he’s consistently failed to capture his early mad-hatter-run-amok fury.
The guitarists on “Chinese Democracy” - Buckethead, Bumblefoot, Richard Fortus, Robin Finck and Paul Tobias - use Slash’s dirty blues as a starting point but take it places G N’ R’s iconic axe-man could never, and would never, want to go. And the results are wicked cool.
“I.R.S.” tilts between a gentle lilt and a classic “Appetite” grind. Beneath the lilt are lyrical blues lines. Over the top of the grind are supernovas that reference Tom Morello, Yngwie Malmsteen, Vernon Reid and Slash, too. “Scraped,” “Better” and “If the World,” all vaguely electronic, use this same approach: bursts of straight, lyrical rock guitar, bursts of fast, twisted notes that sound like they’re coming from a malfunctioning cyborg.
The absence you notice most is Stradlin.. G N’ R’s second guitarist wrote the band’s straightest rock songs (“Patience,” “Mr. Brownstone,” “Think About You”). No Izzy means no good Stones’ cops. And because Rose doesn’t do simple well without Stradlin, the weakest tracks on “Chinese Democracy” are its most typical, specifically the title track and “Shackler’s Revenge.”
But no Izzy means Rose is free to write what he wants: sagas equal to his best “Illusion” experiments. Half of “Chinese Democracy” consists of big, bold, piano-driven operettas directed at his old band mates, himself and his haters.
“Sometimes I feel like the world is on top of me/breaking me down with an endless monotony,” Rose sings on “Scraped.” Then he adds, “like a daily affirmation, I am unconquerable.”
So what’s Rose retained from his past life? His Queen fascination is in full bloom. His wicked yowls, howls and growls remain intact, and his obsession with “Cool Hand Luke” has held - this time incongruously paired with Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” sound bites and Kashmir-like strings on “Madagascar.”
Oh, and there’s his ego. Now everybody knows Slash wasn’t the genius in the band.
Download the brooding, black, brilliantly un-“Appetite” tell-off, “Sorry.”
http://bostonherald.com/entertainment/m … id=1133834
BOSTON GLOBE
When it comes to Guns N' Roses' 13-years-in-the-making "Chinese Democracy," out today, there's really only one question that matters: Was it worth the wait?
The answer has to be no, of course not, how could it be? That said, it's an exhilarating album. Seriously, after finally hearing these 14 tracks in their finished form I was so energized I wanted to climb a mountain. I felt a grudging admiration for Axl Rose's tortured artistry - and could almost imagine forgiving his make-'em-wait diva attitude at shows.
"Democracy" may not have the metal band's classic lineup, but lone original GNR member and group mastermind Rose has crafted the kind of record that makes superlatives tumble like a waterfall: exciting, urgent, frenzied, heavy, melodic, quirky, melodramatic, and occasionally overbaked. It demands that you hit the repeat button after the first listen for both the hard-rocking highs and the head-scratching lows. In other words, it's everything you want - and a little you don't.
Happily, Rose and his coterie of co-writers retain some of the hallmarks of 1987's "Appetite for Destruction" and 1991's twin "Use Your Illusion" albums.
Melt-your-face guitar solos? Check out the attack on the title track and the lumbering "I.R.S.," blistering guitar courtesy of Robin Finck and Bucket-head.
Candied, singable pop melodies wrapped in barbed-wire arrangements? Listen to the catchy hook and heated wah-wah guitar licks of "Better."
Left-field experiments just crazy enough to work? Consider the combo of delicate 12-string acoustic flights and deep bass funk of "If the World."
And Rose does it all without sounding as if he's been hermetically sealed off from the rest of popular music (witness the hip-hop-tinged rhythm tracks) or forgotten his own history (behold the throwback machine gun riffage).
As vital as "Democracy" is, the labor-intensiveness of the process is evident in the instruments piled on top of one another. Given this appetite for construction, it's easy to envision Rose huddled over a mixing board punching in the tangled guitar solos, windswept orchestral passages, and layers of backing vocals with a maniacal Frankenstein-ian glee. But at least the singer-songwriter and his army of engineers and musicians managed to keep the basic outline of the songs discernible through the clutter.
The biggest obstacle to unadulterated enjoyment may be Rose's voice. The familiar high-pitched caterwaul now more pinched and mottled comes as a shock after so many years without it. And he takes it through different modulations, mostly on the lower end, over the course of the album. One minute he's the familiar bratty ranter on the frenetic "Scraped," the next he's affecting some weird, Ozzy-post-etiquette-training elocution on "Street of Dreams." (The song itself is pretty sweet, though: a grandiose, Elton John-style piano ballad with an intimate sentiment).
There are those who had given up caring if the album would ever surface, but now that Rose has finally decided to spread "Democracy" around, it's a pleasant surprise to find how welcome it is.
- FlashFlood
- Rep: 55
Re: Chinese Democracy official reviews thread
here is a fair one from ultimate-guitar. look what a guitar site says about the solo in This I Love...it may not be what some of you expect!
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/reviews/ … index.html
Sound: Outside of the Beach Boys’ Smile, no other album in rock-n-roll history has inspired the kind of legend that Chinese Democracy has in the last decade or so. Soon after their atrocious covers album, The Spaghetti Incident hit stores, GNR mainman Axl Rose has been talking up Chinese Democracy. Little did anyone know but the album would take nearly 20 years to see the light of day. Much has been written about the making of the record so we’ll spare you all of the already well-documented details and instead will focus on highlighting the end results here. If you want to see the gigantic list of musical collaborators on the project, seek out the liner notes online. Below is a song by song breakdown of the album. // 7
Lyrics and Singing: GNR’s best work was always a sum of all of its parts. If Slash and Izzy (or Gilby for that matter) were volleying off each other and Duff and either Steven Adler or Matt Sorum were locked in to the groove chances are whatever song they were playing would be rivaling or even topping anyone else that came before them. But the extra kick in the ass was Axl Rose. When the gifted yet troubled singer was on his A game, the competition had no chance. On this comeback album, Rose is surrounded by a cast (and a long one at that) of musicians so a lot of the old GNR charm rests on his shoulders. While the guys backing him on the tracks do a formidable job, that specific magic of the old days is lost. Either way, the singer delivers one of his strongest performances. He utilizes every facet of his wide range throughout the 14 tracks. We get the high-pitched wailing of “Out Ta Get Me,” the softer tone of “Patience,” and the steamrolling mid-range found in classics like “You Could Be Mine” throughout this collection. Like an old-friend, Rose’s familiar voice is welcomed and even though the classic line-up isn’t around anymore, the songs have that extra spark only someone like this legend can lend them.
01.“Chinese Democracy”: after an unnecessary long intro, the album kicks off with an over-processed guitar sound that has more in common with the industrial informed sounds of Nine Inch Nails than it does with the blues based hard-rock of their early material. It’s not all that surprising since former NIN six-stringer Robin Finck plays on the track. Rose’s vocals are double-tracked on the verses so you get his low and high register at the same time lending the song a sinister vibe throughout. The middle section features some blistering guitar solo work supercharging the song right when it needed it. Choosing to start the album with this track was a wise move and our fears are somewhat relieved…for now at least. // 7
02.“Shackler’s Revenge”: the first riff in “Shackler’s Revenge” sounds like something Static-X would concoct and unfortunately for the listener, things don’t really veer away from that for the remainder of the song. The mechanical rhythm track only accentuates the song’s lifeless feel. The guitars and bass sound like they are coming out of walls of solid-state heads making you long for the warmer, analog sounds of their classic output. The only thing that could have saved this one from its own mediocrity would have been a gigantic chorus but that never came. This one isn’t even good enough for b-side status. // 4
03.“Better”: almost from the get-go, “Better” hooks you in with one memorable melody after the other. Rose’s tremendous mid-range is utilized for the majority of the song and the production pulls back leaving it to shine without the effects and processing found on “Shackler’s Revenge.” Throughout the remainder of the track, Finck and Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal take turns soloing showcasing their explosive yet tasteful styles. Some of their licks will even remind you off former GNR axe-slinger Slash in spots. After the colossal letdown of the previous song, “Better” is a beaming example of why the world was waiting for this album with baited-breadth. // 8
04.“Street of Dreams”: Elton John’s influence is all over “Street of Dreams.” From the gorgeous piano sections to the stadium-ready orchestration, this track sounds like the English singer’s early 70’s work like Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Tumbleweed Connection. It’s not that “Street of Dreams” apes every move from those albums but it definitely has their sonic fingerprints all over it. The band even had John join them on a version of their song “November Rain” back in the early 90’s so their ties go back for years. Outside of the obvious textural influences, “Street of Dreams” contains Axl’s unmistakable vocal flourishes making it a GNR song in the end. The climactic guitar solos are a highpoint and the pretty piano melodies are abundant so this one will definitely find its way onto the band’s live sets for years to come. // 7
05.“If The World”: everything about this song misses the mark. From the light-jazz percussion to the go-nowhere vocal parts, “If The World” is an utter waste of studio time. How this disaster made it onto the album is a complete mystery. With the exception of a few interesting guitar parts, the song is devoid of anything worth further exploring. // 2
06.“There Was A Time”: here come those drum loops again. It seems like Axl is totally infatuated with the electronic side of music these past few years and certainly during the making of Chinese Democracy. It doesn’t serve the material well here as they seem like afterthoughts more than organic parts of the songs they’re found in. At the core of it, “There Was A Time” doesn’t have a compelling enough song to help propel it over its sonic weaknesses. // 4
07.“Catcher in the Rye”: this one gets off to a winning start with bluesy guitar licks and country-rock pianos. The verse melody is reminiscent of Use Your Illusion era GNR. The chorus explodes with huge guitars only to give way to a quieter interlude and then back into a classic-rock solo section. Some of Rose’s vocal cues have a Paul McCartney-esque charm about them etching themselves into your head after the first listen. Just when you started losing interest the record gets a jolt of energy. // 7
08.“Scraped”: a straight-ahead rocker in the mold of the title track, “Scraped” isn’t going to have you dying to reach for the rewind button. For another band this song would have made an OK album cut but for a band that had their fans waiting for so many years, it comes off as a big letdown. // 6
09.“Riad N’ The Bedouins": this one has a shuffling guitar main refrain that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Appetite For Destruction but there are elements in the arrangement that hinder the track. For one, Axl’s high-pitched vocal delivery doesn’t mesh well with the rest of the instrumentation. After a while, his singing starts sounding like a wall of shrieking; shifting your focus away from the muscular guitars. How this mess got past the production team of Rose and Caram Costanzo really boggles the mind. // 5
10.“Sorry”: the song immediately starts with Rose’s singing echoing the bluesy overtones ringing in the rhythm section and guitars. Something in the reverb-drenched guitars reminds this writer of David Gilmour’s (Pink Floyd) mid-period work. The dramatic chorus seems tailor-made to bounce off arena walls. One of the band’s biggest strengths is their ability to pull of sweeping epics like this and this song is proof they should have explored that side of their arsenal more. // 7
11.“I.R.S.”: another track that doesn’t really warrant its inclusion here. The riffs and Axl’s melodies are sub-standard, the kind of stuff any bar-band would come up with. Is this the same songwriter who wrote “Rocket Queen?” // 5
12.“Madagascar”: this is one where Rose really aimed for the rafters. It’s the type of grandiose musical statement a younger band wouldn’t probably even try writing let alone record. There are majestic string orchestrations and dramatic guitar lead runs that echo the singer’s vocal lines at key points. A speech from Martin Luther King Jr. gets thrown into the song’s crescendo for added effect. This one is the vein of “Civil War” or “Estranged” but neither the lyrics nor the arrangement help get the song into that club. The nuances in this one might grow on you with time but at this point, we’re left a bit underwhelmed again. // 6
13.“This I Love” here’s Chinese Democracy’s most potent moment. Rose is accompanied by a piano, a string section, and a Robin Finck guitar solo that pushes and pulls into the of the album’s most impassioned performances. Some of the more interesting bends recall Michael Schenker’s most thrilling work with U.F.O. in the late 70s. Who would have guessed that a guy who made a name for himself in an industrial-rock band would have such classic-rock blessed chops in his pocket? Another great choice by Rose was to keep this one short and sweet insuring the extraordinary melodies and guitar solos don’t get suffocated by a busy arrangement. // 9
14.“Prostitute”: “Prostitute” goes from hushed verses to a towering chorus washed in guitars and theatrical orchestration making it a fitting closer. It’s not clear who Rose is directing the lyrics to when he sings, “Oh, I saw the damage in you, my fortunate one, the ending of you,” but the intent is there, seething right below the surface. There is some whammy-bar assisted bombast towards the final seconds that comes out of nowhere but somehow works in the scheme of the song. So just like that, Chinese Democracy comes to and end. // 7 // 8
Impression: Does the album live up to the lofty expectations the public has showered it with? No, but then again, how could it have anyway? If Chinese Democracy would have come out 2 or even 4 years after their last studio album, it would have been examined in a whole other manner. There is enough great material here to make the album a worthy fit into your music collection but is it essential as an entire piece, no. But then again, how many full-lengths released today are? There are 6-7 powerful tracks here and they prove Rose is still a vital songwriter and frontman. Hopefully he can get back into the studio and bang out another collection sooner than it took this time. // 7
- By Carlos Ramirez (c) 2008
- A Private Eye
- Rep: 77
Re: Chinese Democracy official reviews thread
Following musical trends is a dangerous thing. Back in 1967, in trying to emulate the psychedelia of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Rolling Stones forgot what made them a great band and delivered Their Satanic Majesties Request, the least satisfying, most incoherent album of their career.
Not only have Guns N' Roses (or rather, Axl Rose and his revolving door of session musicians) repeated the Stones' mistake, they've taken a whopping 17 years to do so. The irony, of course, is that the results don't simply neglect GNR's strengths, they sound stuck in an early 1990s industrial rock time-warp.
Put simply, Axl's desperate desire to sound contemporary formed a toxic combination with his legendary indecision and perfectionism to (eventually) give the world Chinese Democracy; a sprawling, over-long mess of an album which only rarely approaches the giddy heights of their previous work.
In truth, however, it is wrong even to refer to 'their previous work' for the simple reason that this isn't the same band that came up with the blistering rock swagger of Appetite For Destruction. In fact, it isn't even a band at all. Having shed all but one of its original members, the Guns N' Roses of Chinese Democracy is nothing more than an assortment of hired hands biting their collective lip as their employer gives new meaning to the term 'vanity project'.
That isn't to say it's all bad. I.R.S. perhaps comes closest to revisiting former glories. A spectacularly angry and paranoid rant which namechecks the President, the IRS, and the FBI, it is mercifully devoid of the superfluous strings, electronic noodling and double-tracked vocals of much of the rest of the album. Street Of Dreams, on the other hand, is a pale imitation of what went before, specifically November Rain.
The aptly-named Sorry unintentionally strikes right to the heart of the problem. Rose sings of an unnamed nemesis, "I'm sorry for you, not sorry for me, you don't know who you can trust or who you believe" but he could be (perhaps subconsciously is?) referring to himself.
by James Hurley, MSN Music Editor
Re: Chinese Democracy official reviews thread
Philadelphia Inquirer's review:
Axl Rose delivers, after 17 years
By Dan DeLuca
Inquirer Music Critic
At long last, Chinese Democracy has arrived. And on behalf of procrastinators everywhere, I'd like to offer hearty congratulations to Axl Rose for finally completing his magnum opus.
After all, why do today what you put off for 17 years? That's how long it's been since Guns N' Roses put out an album of original music. It was 1991 when the savage Los Angeles hard-rock band, in a characteristic act of hubris, released two, with Use Your Illusion I and II.
But is that really so long to wait? Sure, Michelangelo knocked out the Sistine Chapel ceiling in four years, but the dude got to lie flat on his back the whole time. Axl, like Atlas, has had to carry the weight of an ever-changing world on his shoulders for nearly two decades.
And he's still managed to unleash the 14-song, 71-minute, shockingly good Chinese Democracy (Black Frog ***½), which goes on sale today exclusively at Best Buy, in just the same amount of time it took James Joyce to write Finnegan's Wake.
Along the way, Rose has been written off as a petulant, tantrum-throwing monomaniac, not to mention an obsessively neurotic tinkerer who, at last count, had spent more than $13 million on an album that even ardent GN'R fans had given up on ever hearing.
It's turned out, however, that the red-headed, hip-shimmying, now 46-year-old Rose is a genius when it comes to at least one thing: expectation management.
All the other key GN'R members are long gone from the band, including onstage foil Slash, bass player Duff McKagan, and crucially, guitarist Izzy Stradlin, the band's best songwriter.
"Oh My God," Axl's only GN'R music to come out in the interim (on the soundtrack to the 1999 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie End Of Days) was a dismal, dull disappointment. New GN'R gigs often proved to be debacles, like the 2002 show at the Wachovia Center that never happened because Axl stayed in his New York hotel room, instigating a near-riot. And the dense, deep-voiced Chinese teaser "Shackler's Revenge," released in September on the video game Rock Band, hardly seemed buzz-worthy.
So it stood to reason that if Chinese Democracy ever came out, it was bound to be a bloated, Heaven's Gate of a letdown, a would-be masterpiece weighed down by self-importance, woefully out of step with times that have long since passed him by.
But with expectations thus diminished, Chinese Democracy turns out to be the surprise of a season that's already seen comeback albums by hard-rock acts Metallica and AC/DC.
It doesn't suck, after all. And while it's proudly excessive and unquestionably epic, with as many as five multi-tracked guitarists in Robin Finck, Paul Tobias, Richard Fortus, Buckethead and Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal filling in for Slash and Stradlin, the album only occasionally comes off as gratuitously indulgent.
Chinese Democracy - which Rose is said to have named after seeing Martin Scorsese's Kundun in 1997, and has been streaming at the band's MySpace site since Thursday - avoids going down a dark, techno-industrial alley that many GN'R fans feared with the presence of Nine Inch Nails' Finck.
It doesn't sound hopelessly stuck in the early '90s, either. Jittery beats and Spanish guitar underpin the apocalyptic "If the World," and metal machine-gun riffage fires up "Scraped," with Rose screeching, "Don't try to stop us now / I just won't let you."
Almost every song takes its time ebbing and flowing to near-orchestral crescendos. Six tracks, including the stately "Catcher in the Rye," seemingly a nod to fellow recluse J.D. Salinger, stretch to more than five minutes.
Many seem to be about the album itself. "All I got is precious time," Rose sings wryly in the title cut. In a scratchy voice that shows its age, he allows, "I can't find my way back any more," in "Madagascar," a song that samples both the Paul Newman movie Cool Hand Luke (a Rose favorite) and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech.
The latter song, along with the Elton John-ish "Street of Dreams" (previously known as "The Blues"), has been performed for years by the new version of GN'R, which seems to include Illusion-era pianist Dizzy Reed, bassist Tommy Stinson, drummer Frank Ferrer, and multi-instrumentalist Chris Pitman, along with guitarists Fortus and Thal.
Maybe it's because Rose wrote these songs - and, for all we know, recorded his vocals - years ago, but Chinese Democracy is not heavy with portent and solemn middle-age regret. Rose may not look the same as he did back in his "November Rain" days, but he still sounds feisty and spirited, blaming the world for his troubles. "I'm sorry for you," he sings on "Sorry." "Not sorry for me."
Since Use Your Illusion, grunge has come and gone, and rappers have filled the roles that used to be played by self-aggrandizing rock stars. GN'R cover bands abound, and even the likes of Carrie Underwood and Sheryl Crow have been known to dip into the band's songbook in search of un-ironic rock-and-roll swagger.
There's some question as to how much appetite there is for Chinese Democracy among a downloading crowd that was barely alive when GN'R last weighed in. Should they choose to give old man Axl a chance, however, they'll find that the long-missing rocker has more left to offer than anyone could have reasonably expected.
Re: Chinese Democracy official reviews thread
http://music.yahoo.com/read/news/61899325
another good one at Yahoo music...Axl is up on the main Yahoo page.
Re: Chinese Democracy official reviews thread
He is on the front page of uk msn and its not so good:
Re: Chinese Democracy official reviews thread
first off, the reviews in all three local papers were very positive, perhaps shockingly so. 3 stars from Star Ledger and Daily News, a positive track breakdown from the NY Post, all by reviewers who are, admittedly, not fans.
Secondly, a fan review, I'd give the CD, 4 of 5 stars. It is epic and amazing. "Better", "IRS", "Sorry", "This I Love" are absolutely among the best GnR has ever done. I do think some fans will be like the Star Wars fans with Episode one, nothing will be good enough, they've built preconceived ideas that cannot be met. For the rest of us, enjoy! The wait is over!!
Re: Chinese Democracy official reviews thread
don't worry, very few on this board want to hear anything positive....but here is an interesting one from David Wild who first heard the tracks in Nov 1999...
Re: Chinese Democracy official reviews thread
don't worry, very few on this board want to hear anything positive....but here is an interesting one from David Wild who first heard the tracks in Nov 1999...
Just because some of us don't agree with everything Axl says and with his every words and that we don't think that every songs on CD is the best thing since sliced bread don't mean we don't wanna hear positive things madagas. 
