Nowt wrong with the lyrics on CD. Axl's lyrical turn of phrase is vastly superior to, say, Myles "rhyme light with right" Kennedy.

It's hugely frustrating to hear the potential in the songs written and recorded around that time, and consider what could've been. Like you say – Slash, Duff and Gilby came up with some great riffs in that period, but the lyrics were – at best – good. With Axl's lyrical touch and his ear for elevating a song through production and arrangement (but not the over-production that turned some ChiDem songs into a mess) they could've been *great*.

And similarly, in the Axl tracks of that vintage you can hear the potential. If he'd recorded TIL back then, with Slash doing something like his Orlando '16 solo, it could've been another November Rain.

He's sounding pretty good after his enforced break:

In this order: rest up, get the vocal cord surgery, tighten up the sets and rework the songs to either make use of the baritone voice or transpose them down into a more doable vocal range. Health comes first.

And I've always been less interested in vocal gymnastics than in dynamics - what I like about Axl (and, say, Scott Weiland, who could never approach Axl's range) is the passion in the vocals. If I wanted to see GN'R songs performed note-perfect but with a complete absence of emotion I'd go see Myles Kennedy.