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Did anyone else listen to the album? I played it a couple of times today and put some thoughts down over lunch.
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"Better" has a certain cadence I found immediately appealing, which struck me as odd because initially I really hated it. But soon enough my initial feelings came back and I decided that it could have been something interesting with the original band, but now it really doesn't take off and just hunkers down within itself instead of bursting forth.
"IRS" starts out semi-interesting but doesn't really progress to anything. One gets the sense there was a probably a decent song in here but it just doesn't happen. (This phrase is going to be repeated many times).
"There was A Time" is just boring. It started out boring and actually got a bit worse as it went on.
"Catcher in the Rye" might be my favourite song on the album, despite it beginning with some piano plinking by the vile and horrible Dizzy Reed, the man who ultimately made UYI less than it could have been. This song could have been a decent track on UYI II. There are moments during this song that actually makes me feel like I'm 18 again and am hearing the new Guns and Roses for the first time. There's a solo near the end that makes me wish for another song by the original band because I could really hear Slash there for a moment and I actually felt really, really melancholy. Then it passes as the next song begins.
"Chinese Democracy" is also fairly shitty. I don't know what else to say about it. It doesn't rock at all. I guess he's probably trying to make a statement here but I'm beyond caring about it because the music is so awful.
"The Blues" - Elton John beginnings and once again I could hear Slash on this song and feel that twinge of nostalgia. I actually kind of enjoyed this one as well. There's no coincidence that the more I hear the "old" band in these songs, the more I enjoy it. The more it strays towards something else, I'm disinterested.
"Madagascar" - This is beyond horrible. The audio snippets near the end, with MLK, Mississippi Burning, Cool Hand Luke (again) are strange and ill-advised. It's pretentious and stupid. No shit, you can't find your way back Axl. That's REALLY evident on this song. This is what happens when you take full control of a band and no one is there to check your many, many ill-advised detours into meandering bullshit.
"Rhiad and the Bedouins" - I don't know if this is a real song or not. If it's complete, then it's the worst GnR track ever. Hell, not even Guns, let's just elect this as one of the worst songs, or ideas for a song, ever.
"Oh My God" sounds like any shitty modern rock song. There was an idea here that could have been worked into something and could have been slipped on UYI I even, near the end, maybe just before "Coma", but it gets worked into complete garbage. Worse than "Coma" actually.
"Silkworms" is just awful. Beyond redemption. I think I'd sooner listen to "My World" on a constant loop for 1000 years.
It seems like the basic structure of the songs lack an edge. It's like Axl put them through a filter and smoothed them out and then ran them through again and again and again. Maybe that's all he's been doing the last decade or so. It's like all the residual noise and sloppy accidents that makes for interesting rock and roll were just smoothed out until it became this botoxed mess of an album. Most of the songs seem too long by far, even the ones that clock in at less than 4 min. This isn't rock and roll. I don't care if it's got loud guitars and drums and a guy yelling a lot. If this is rock and roll then I am sober. The worst part is that I don't even hate it. At least if it evoked that particuluar emotion in me it might even qualify as an artistic statement. Alas, it does not.
The very modern sound is probably what I find most off-putting here. Of course, there are several problems with this statement. He's been been apparently working on this albums since the mid-90s, and we've actually had seen a couple of musical trends visit us and mercifully depart in the time it took for this album to STILL not be released. How can it sound modern when the recording time has probably taken longer than several marriages. Well, it just does and that's the only way to put it. It's got hints of nu-metal, NIN and other styles and that basic sound that just screams mediocre 21st century rock music. So not only does it sound 'Modern' but it also sounds dated all at the same time. So it fails on two fronts. Now I realize that it's contradictory to state that point, but perhaps it's that kind of fuzzy logic that gets passed on to you by this album. Maybe this will finally be the record that we were all warmed about by parents that if we continued to listen to this kind of music it would rot our brains. People, this might be the record that delivers on that promise.
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All I can say is, go on and bleed.
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eter, aka 
usty 
halk
