After 14 years, Guns N' Roses finally released the highly anticipated album.

Play it by Ear - 'Chinese Democracy' - New Guns N' Roses album lacks firepower

By: Jesus Butler

Posted: 12/1/08

"There will be democracy in China before there's Chinese Democracy" people used to say. No longer: Chinese Democracy, the long awaited Guns N' Roses album, is finally here. Was it worth the wait?

Eh.

After 14 years of production and countless line-up changes, Axl Rose's attempt at a rock masterpiece has a lot to live up to.

When they first burst on the scene in the early 90's, Guns N' Roses' ingeniously catchy riffs and raw, powerful sound made them an instant hit. Slash shredded with the best of them, while Duff and Izzy kept the rhythm pounding behind Rose's adrenaline-fueled shrieks. After Rose's egomania finally caused the other founding members to part ways, he embarked on a tumultuous journey to prove his musical genius to the world. Chinese Democracy is the result of that journey.

The title track, which starts the album off, seems designed specifically to set worried Guns N' Roses fans at ease. As an ominous crowd of voices (all speaking Mandarin, of course) gives way to the song's anthemic chords, you can almost hear Rose fan boys breathe a collective sigh of relief. But then the song goes on, and you realize it's good … but not great. Certainly not title-track-of-an-album-14-years-in-the-making great. Yes, it sounds like Guns N' Roses; but as an album opener, it can't touch Appetite for Destruction's "Welcome to the Jungle."

Next comes the industrial-sounding "Shackler's Revenge." This track's guitar solo, provided by venerable metal shredder Buckethead, is one of the album's highest points, and the heavily overdubbed chorus actually sounds pretty cool. The third track, "Better," manages to seamlessly mesh the classic Guns N' Roses sound with some of the new tricks Rose has picked up over the years. It's easily the album's strongest track on first listen.

So we're three songs in, and the way things are shaping up, this album may just prove worth the wait. Too bad this is where things take a turn for the worse.

Enter "Streets of Dreams," a ballad so cheesy and overdone most 80's hair metal bands wouldn't even touch it. Rose, like most aging rockers, has mellowed out over the years, and it shows throughout Chinese Democracy, which has two mid-tempo ballads for every solid rocker. "If the World," with its touches of Spanish guitar and looped bass track, sounds more like a one-off for some movie soundtrack than a Guns N' Roses song. The aptly named "There Was a Time" does indeed recall a better time - when Guns N' Roses songs didn't need world-rhythm drum intros and string sections to impress. "There Was a Time" suffers from both, but is redeemed in part by a strong bridge and the straightforward crunch of the catchy guitar riff that Rose belts over during the chorus. Overall the song is good, but it - like the rest of the album - has one major caveat: it's not memorable.

As it turns out, Chinese Democracy is exactly what die hard Guns N' Roses fans feared it might be all these years: an overproduced jumble. Yes, there are some solid rockers between the outdated ballads and Rose's failed attempts to prove the expansiveness of his compositional might. But the album doesn't come close to being the messianic savior of rock music Rose surely hoped it would be. That's not to say it's terrible, because it really isn't. It's something even worse: mediocre. Final Score: 5/10.

jbutler@unews.com