Well good momentum aside, Axl himself dusted off the "soon is not the word" line for that Chinese Exchange thing.

That said and they can do what they please but to regain any sense of mainstream relevancy beyond with old fans, they need to get to stepping with releasing music.

I also doubt that a GH / Best Of would change their situation with the label. The label owns all of the Chinese Sessions probably in addition to some sort of X albums contract. I remember Prince shitting out albums purely to get around the latter in the 90s.

I'd love new music.

We beggars cannot be choosers.

I wonder what songs it will be (Chinese stuff vs. old Guns stuff) and if they plan on releasing that music separately. Like are they doing fan service on some B-level or C-level tracks or is this like releasing a digital single.

It's one of those "it makes sense in the head but not in the heart" things.

That said, this news is unsurprising. The timeline just doesn't make sense. They're not going to release an album and hit a small portion of US dates in support of it. It'll be album released synced up to a U.S. Tour.

Maybe they'll play new songs in South America as prep work like they did in 2001-2002. Speaking of, the New GN'R lineups managed to make hay consistently in Europe and Asia, so you'd think they're going to make a killing with Slash and Duff back in the fold. So Fall 2017 at the earliest to even think about a new album, one would guess.

This assuming they want to release an album, have it ready to go, worked out whatever they're doing or not doing with the Chinese material, and the business side of things have been worked out.