OK first and formost its a good album. I enjoy listening to it and its more or less been on repeat for the last few days. I have been manically following and supporting this new era of GNR since 1999, thats 2 years before I ever got access to the internet. I would browse news stands, looking through music magazines looking for any mention of Guns N Roses and a new album.
I've been a fan since 1987 when I was 7 years old and my older brother gave me a cassette of appetite and told me to turn my Slippery When Wet record the fuck off!
I can honestly say GNR provided the soundtrack to my life, my favouite band ever. As far as I knew it was all over in 94, I never heard anything about new albums or songs until Oh My God in 99, then GNR exploded back into my life after a lull of a few years.
Nearly 10 years of waiting later I have I finally own Guns N' Roses new album - Chinese Democracy.
And thats a very very nice feeling indeed.

But the more I digest the contents and reflect on everything thats surrounded it since its conception, I'm swaying more and more to the frame of mind that its an Axl solo project and is not Guns N Roses.

I'm fearing Guns N'Roses is now just a brand name being marketed purely for financial gain and also to satisfy and caress a small number of egos.
I will not be getting the new logo as a tatoo as I once considered, my GNR tatoo (if I even get one) will try to incorporate the old and new.

This incarnation of GN'R has always been a seperate beast to the old GNR in my mind anyway. But over the years I bought into the spin doctors yarn that the others guys walked away rather than GNR disbanding so GNR never ended. I look at it differently now.
Anyway, I think I'll just go back to calling them New GNR like I once used to, that somehow feels much more comfortable. But even New GNR has become near unrecognisable from the line up that first convinced me this was more than an Axl Rose solo project, although thankfully that bands body of work lies nearly intact on the new album.

I like most of the album and the highlights for me are Better, Street Of Dreams, Riad, IRS and Madagascar. 

Better just rocks! Its awesome and it has some pretty cool lyrics and lovely sentiments contained within the song.
IRS is another one that I dont tire of hearing. Badass guitars, some wicked vocals and killer drums. Whenever its on I have to turn the volume up another notch.
Riad is definently one of my favourites and I'm suprised at this because I always considered  it as unappealing to me. The finished article kicks like a mule. Incredible drumming and guitars carry the song but the undeniable passion in Axls singing is equally impressive. This song is a true diamond in the rough.
Scraped is still an enigma to me, I cant deside if its just ok or actually pretty great. Anyway I think its a good tune, very imaginative and I'm looking forward to giving it a few more spins.

There is a definate hint of "mutton dressed as lamb" with some of the songs though. Ultimately they are average songs with no expense spared in a attempt to mold them into something more exotic and attractive. Chinese Democracy, Prostitute and There Was A Time are particuarly guilty of this.
Street Of Dreams is very good song and worked beautifully in its naked demo form, the finished article, whilst still a highlight for me,  has been tinkered with one to many times. The pasted in additional vocals at the end hit an absolute bum note.
If The World is another song that worked well its basic original format, but has been saturated with OTT strings, electronic basslines and poor mixing at that. The phased "la la la" is laughable.
Its only the fact that there is a nice little song buried underneath all of these extra trimmings, disaster is averted.

Amazingly my favourite song on the album could actually have used some more work. Madagascar is wounded by the low volume of Bucketheads solo, the samples and strings become so dominant that the solo actually goes awol for a while. Another boo-boo I have noticed is the french horn cannot be heard in the last section of the song. It suddenly reappears out of the fog once all the singing and guitars are over in the closing moments. This horn is the melody which is the driving force of the song and should be flushed out more during the mixing process. The live versions sound so much better because the horns are played by organ and are much higher in the mix.

This periodic poor production, that shows its face far too often over the course of the album, detracts from the listening experience for me. I get the impression that someone wouldnt leave it to the professionals and kept tinkering with it right up until it was turned over.

The over album artwork is ok, not very impressive or even professional looking, but the image of the bike is very evocative and theres more meaning beneath that than many people realise. I am a definate fan of the cover.

The errors contained within the booklet are unforgivable. Its completely pathetic. The mind boggles as to how this can have slipped under the radar, I just cant fathom it.
It shows a complete disrespect to the fans, some of whom are splashing out with some of what little money they can afford to part with.
It makes me wonder are Guns N Roses really such an unoragansied self indulgent ramshackle that noone noticed?
Or did they notice and say, oh fuck it, we'll let the clowns buy it and mend it later with the future batches?
In my disapointment over this I'm even beginning to wonder if they knew all about it, and know that most of the people who buy the initial release are big fans who will once again purchase the reissue, generating additional sales figures and more money.

Anyway, I could go on all night but I better stop.

Ultimately its a very good album but for me its a bittersweet experience. Unfortunately along with the good, came the bad and the ugly.

In reflection mabye it is a typical GNR record after all.

If this album has filler then its a very sad state of affairs.

You cant spend that amount of time making an album and have to chuck in a couple of songs as filler.

I kinda hope though that they regard some songs as A list and some B-list. If your planning on bringing out a couple of albums it makes sense to spread the A list songs over the course of the albums.

But that down to the creators opinion, the listeners will all form a different opinion. I consider Riad and IRS A-list but many rank them lowest out all the songs.

Josh Freeze has credit on 5 out of 14 songs for drum arrangements and one co writing credit for Chinese Democracy.

Thats 9 songs that Brain came up with the drum arrangements for. He also is credited as a co writer on Shacklers Revenge and Sorry.

And he is the guy playing on 13 of the songs.

Sounds like he did a bit more than act as a mimic.