I really like it, I just wish the outro went longer. Like slash's solo was warming up, Axl doing those heart felt screams then it just kinda stops dead...I wish it had more of a breakdown or locomotive outro or something, or even something like Slash's wicked stone live outro.

But I do think it's great.

Prime Axl is so far ahead of Prime Vince it's crazy.

Vince has always been a good frontman mind you but Axl is god level back in the day.

Overall Axl still has moments of brillance, like twat last year....

But the thing is who sounds worse singing their own songs most of the time these days. Not which is the better singer, but like which song will be more butchered?

Vince will mumble his way through Key Star Ma Har, and Axl will do You Could Be Mine in full mickey.

It's kinda a toss up which version is the more offensive. Like Vince will be on pitch and key, with zero pronunciation and gasping for air, no understandable english lyrics, but the party feel of the song remains cos it always had a 'yell out and party" vibe. You could be mine on the other hand which still be sung technically well, we will make out all the words even some we never did back in the day, but the anger, the agression and the mood of the song will be totally lost as you listen to the disney version.

So it's really a devils choice for me.

Yeah in 2001 Slash was given between 6 days and 6 weeks to live.....but he seems to be immortal

I seriously do wonder about these guys though - like the drugs and drinking background of everyone in the band, plus, just stuff like getting tired, getting aches and pains....I know i'm captain negative of late...but I do think if they wanna have a serious go at a new project they really wanna get it cooking pretty soon....lets hope the roady who said there was more old stuff akin to AFD heard right and they have a secret half done EP or something.

There was a short sample of better that leaked into the mainstream boards  around that time.

It was short - like 15 or 30 seconds or something - just a couple of lines of Axl in one of the verses.

I remember it was exciting because it sounded very rocky and Axl sounded good.

Although I like the song, in a way I was disappointed hearing the full version the way it's quite choppy between the chorus and the way it goes into that metal breakdown. Sounds dumb but after the clip I had expected more of a straight ahead cohesive thing.

Anyways, full version leaked by Darknemus  in Feb 06 - and from memory was very similar to the album version but without some of the bumblefoot guitars...so for instance at the conclusion of the metal bridge you just hear the masturbating robots of pitman up in the mix whereas in the stufio take that's there but you hear Ron's guitar slide down over it. But it was esentially the same version fundamentally compared to IRS/TWAT etc. Don't think it was particualrly high quality either. Like listenable but not HD.

The elephant in the room is what happened to the songwriting.

Obviously we know he's one of the greatest songwriters of his generation and indeed probably all time...yet somewhere after UYI he seemed to hit a wall.

Axl rejected most of the Slash riffs of the past because as he has said - he does not like to try and write around finished guitar pieces. So it seems unlikely he's going to sit down with a new instrumental album composed by slash and duff and richard now and make it into GNR.

This is probably the same reason nothing came of the pieces submitted by DJ and Bumble.

Most accounts suggest that of the many pieces submitted by brain/bucklet/robin most never got lyrics.

Of the songs he did finish and release the 2008 Chinese Democracy - it's clear a lot of them are made by frankenstiening half song ideas together to try and make a full length song. They jump styles. They jump genres. They stop and start. They mix all kinds of things together including different bands decades apart. They made full length songs but a lot of them don't flow together easily, you need the click running and samples to perform them.

Of the songs post Chinese Democracy - it's the same story - but these ones were put out without the additional inspiration. Hardschool is mostly choruses with a long instrumental in the middle. Absurd is a classic rant repeated over and over with no third verse or chorus. Perhaps is the most developed - but even it fundamentally repeats itself from half way through. The general is what one verse and one chorus repeated three times without an outro. Don't get me wrong I love these songs, but it's clear the difference between these and Novermber Rain or Coma was these songs were waiting for additional ideas that don't exist.

When asked if Axl could write for Ac/Dc in 2016 he joked that he would love to do an album if someone could just give him some good finished songs to sing.

Given how the old songs evolved this may have always been his process, but I think it's a process that has basically stopped working. 

As I said in a recent post I think most of the song ideas came from traumas that are now solved, he's not living an AFD lifestyle so he can't write AFD2, I think the young man fire in them all is tempered. They could co-operate to fill the gaps - but as we've seen from the general and so on - slash and duff will not risk another breakup of the enterprise to push things by challenging a strong structure or demanding a new verse or adding on a huge change. They just overdub whatever bucket and robin did - which was mostly unmarkatable art noodles in the first place or random jams in the studio watching porn - and only even became what it did cos younger Axl hacked it into something on a 8 hour pro tools stint in his youth.

As for Slash - I wonder if he's just finally run out of ideas. Dude put out 8 full length albums outside of GNR most of them have classic riffs and solos - but even the last couple of those have started to rehash structures, rehash guitar patterns, or stock slash fills, or some clearly tribute other players or songs in ways that make me think he's starting to hit the wall too.

All that said - they are them - musical geniuses - so I mean - maybe - and just maybe - it still happens - maybe they get in the back of a room in person one day and write a classic in 5 mins...dumber things have happened....but even so...we have a wall - Axl likes to write from the piano but can't finish, Slash likes to write riffs but Axl doesn't know what to do with them, Izzy is gone, Tommy, Bucket, DJ, Bumble, and Co already sent in what they had and it didn't light a fire under anyone....

I mean i'm sure there's still good stuff...the Eye on You melody is cool, and Atlas was an ineresting verse, state of grace was fun sounding....and at least the band gives us these kind of things even if they are incomplete...as I think otherwise we'd be waiting on something thats never going to come.