Guns N' Roses - Chinese Democracy (2008)
One of my friends is obsessed with Guns N' Roses and attempted to convince me how there latest release despite only having 2 of the original members Axl Rose and Dizzy Reed (one could argue that he isn't considered an original member because he only came into the band for Use Your Illusion) was still just as good as there older material. Being slightly curious by the fact that this album took 15 years to make and considering the fact that my friend wanted me to listen to it I thought I may as well listen to it. Going into listening to this was kind of a shock. The material I was hearing didn't sound anything like there older material only a few key tracks had some of the same qualities of there older material (Better, Street of Dreams and I.R.S.). A lot of the songs have a more industrial sound to them (Shakler's Revenge, If The World and Raid N' The Bedouins). Looking at the lyrics I'm not really impressed by what I see and the music itself is good at some points other points it doesn't sound very developed. I get the feeling from listening to this album that (Axl's) Guns N' Roses wanted a very large sound going into this and you could hear that from Use Your Illusion I & II and you would think that it would sound great, but for some reason it doesn't hold up. Overall, I would say I'm not really impressed and can't see how it took 15 years to develope this material. Being compared to Guns N' Roses earlier albums this is just a notch above The Spaghetti Incident. It held very little substance for me.
Ket Tracks: Street of Dreams, Catcher in the Rye and Madagascar
4/10