It’s the curse of the debut album: the artist, unsure of who he/she is or what he/she ought to sound like strikes out in all directions — a power ballad here, a blues grinder there, a piano pop-tune way over yonder. The artist can be forgiven for their somewhat schizoid aim since the label has put all the weight of the company, as well as one’s own career path, down on their freshman shoulders. With that in mind, W. Axl Rose is the oldest freshman in the history of music, as his magnum opus Chinese Democracy has finally seen the light of day. The good news is that it isn’t the unmitigated failure we expected, yet it is far from the triumphant return from exodus his handlers would like you to believe.

It is the equivalent of time travel wrapped in aluminum, or vinyl if you so desire, as songs that gestated through the 15-year span in between it and the previous covers album The Spaghetti Incident? (1993) have not been updated to any semblance of modernity. Rose’s flirtation with industrial rock in the early nineties, plainly NIN-fluenced, are left intact and instantly dated as are the tracks that are NU-fluenced. Korn should be proud to hear the presence of down-tuning, hip-hop loop beats and scream chants on a GNR album, but even Linkin Park jumped that train and caught a taxi to emo-town. I suppose we dodged a Rose-colored, mascaraed bullet on that.

But there are a couple songs that I didn’t mind listening to. In fact, if “Better” came on the radio, I might not turn the dial. It has a semblance of the old attitude the band once had, and not too much of the stylistic shout-outs that bog down the rest of the album. “Shackler’s Revenge” survives a disheartening opening to reveal itself as one of the stronger tracks, and because I do have a soft spot for proggish bombast and consider “November Rain” my favorite GNR tune, “There Was A Time” survives the time trials. But where I finished Metallica’s Death Magnetic and thought, “I’ll still listen to Justice and the black album more, but I’ll revisit this occasionally too,” I can only bring myself to clicking off my favorites in Chinese Democracy’s jumble and dumping them into a hard-rock mixtape. The rest of the album is skip-fodder and, considering the majority of my music listening happens in my car, I’d rather play a different CD and keep my eyes on the road. (more…)

They said it would never be done. I said it would never be done. Geffen/Interscope/ Universal prayed that it might, but Axl Rose kept them at bay for more than a decade (much more!). This morning, however, a miracle happened.

Following in the footsteps of Saints Yorke and Reznor, Rose released Chinese Democracy to an unsuspecting public. Rumored tracks have been leaking onto the torrent sites for well over five years, and several are found on the album (available only as a download for the time being); “Better,” “I.R.S.,” and “There Was a Time” are the most notable, as all have made their way into GNR concerts since 2002. These songs as well as “You Didn’t Hear From Me,” an epic ten-minute track feeling very much like “November Rain, Part 2,” are strangely well produced. I say strangely because, in what may be the boldest move of all, the sonic detail even in MP3 form is stunning. Rejecting the loud and hot model of the most recent hard-rock releases, Rose and his phalanx of producers over the past 13 years have made something that even the most hardened of loud-rock haters will begrudgingly admire. The mix is just that spectacular.

Of course, Rose has never been known as the most altruistic fellow, so don’t expect this to cost $5 or less or even “whatever you want to pay” like Radiohead did with In Rainbows last fall. It’s $9 for the basic version and $14 for a version with an art PDF, but trust me, you’re actually getting your money’s worth this time, if only to hear some punchy, raucous rock the way it used to be, with glistening highs, thunderous lows, and every note in between.

Geffen is proposing shutting down Guns n’ Roses’ official download portal because first-release rights were contracted to them, so grab it fast before it’s too late, or worse, Rose decides to yank it himself and put it on hold for another ten years. The official Chinese Democracy download portal can be found here.