Why release new material when the so-called hits do the job? Guns n’ Roses can coast off into the night on the back of Welcome to the Jungle and their horrendous cover of Bob Dylan’s Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door. People will pay for it, that much is clear. Contractual obligations and a lack of desire to record mean this is the band’s most recent studio release. Whether listeners get another one, only time will tell. Whatever the case, it’ll still be the unconvincing, foul-mouthed rock and roll of Appetite for Destruction or the grim, uninviting mess of The Spaghetti Incident. More a travesty than an incident, and so too is Chinese Democracy. An hour and ten minutes of the worst music you may ever hear precedes it, and yet the band come into their own with this 2008 release. Axl Rose is in the studio, drum machines glued to every limb, as he tries to push his way through the blessing in disguise of Slash’s departure.
He fails, massively. But that is an inevitability. How he fails is of real interest. Clunky is the best word for it. The title track is surprisingly fine, but its shortcomings are evident. Often, it would be enough to bring an energetic guitar riff in to save the songs from slipping into these hard rock places. It doesn’t affect the sexism which raged through the lyrics during their heyday, but then to listen to anything Rose is singing about on Chinese Democracy is the mistake of a listener, rather than his projection. If you can pick out the wordplay, stiff and cluttered it is on this bed of drum machine shortcomings, then you’d be hard-pressed to hear anything of worth. What’s most striking about Chinese Democracy is how uninteresting it is. It never stoops to the levels of awful heard on The Spaghetti Incident. Chinese Democracy, like Lulu from Metallica and Lou Reed, is hated because it was released at a time when internet discourse had more weight than it does now.
There may be more chatter on how languid and uninteresting There Was a Time is, but the vastness of it, the increase, lessens the impact. Slash’s absence fixes one of two problems Guns n’ Roses had. The other problem, Rose, remains. But in the instrumental quiet of There Was a Time, the band comes into their best form. Rock riffs and a steadiness the band needed can be heard throughout Chinese Democracy. It rarely makes it to a point of listenable, and the bloated feeling found here is an inevitable hurdle. But a song like Catcher in the Rye has Guns n’ Roses play up to the style of ten years ago. Dated? Sure. But also a sincere, sweet send-off to old genre tropes. Where Scraped may be devoid of heart, when the band does put some effort in, they come through with miserable listens like Appetite for Destruction. This is a better alternative.
Slash even thinks it’s a “great statement,” something he couldn’t make when in the band. Guns n’ Roses provide a few surprises on Chinese Democracy where the risk of their creativity is far greater than anything released before. Sorry is a ballad-like blowout from the band, and it works brilliantly. Rose has a brilliant side to his voice that he never uses. Sporadically enjoyable is better than consistently awful. Moments which hint at their best work can be found on Chinese Democracy. Those latter songs like Madagascar are an inspiring new range from the band, which are damned if they don’t play the hits, but damned if they do, too. Either way, the conversation will turn away from Rose’s sincere attempt at making a new sound out of a legacy act to his vocal condition. He sounds better here than he ever has, and he can still hit these lower notes. Few would hope he does, but those who do, they have heard the possibilities of Chinese Democracy, string sections and all.
