Here is our Chinese Democracy album review so far from Axl Rose and Guns N Roses
September 15, 2008
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If the rumors are true, there are some songs floating around that were secretly leaked from the long anticipated “Chinese Democracy” album from Guns N’ Roses. During recent tours, GNR has played ‘new’ songs and has talked about a new album with that title coming out “soon”.
I’ve had a chance to listen to several of the new songs because some guy I ran into at an out of town wedding had them on his iPod and was playing them all weekend. I am a longtime GNR fan so I have a pretty good frame of reference, for what it’s worth…
Better
Better starts off with a kind of creepy little intro. It’s a pretty classic catchy GNR tune with a good guitar riff line and various different Axl Rose voices. The guitar solo is noticeably different and a touch flashy, but it definitely pays respect to what Slash created.
I like it.
The Blues
I think this is my favorite so far. It starts out with a piano intro, but it isn’t a 3 minute intro, rather about 45 secinds or so. This is another catchy song witha very memorable melody that I find myself humming now and again. The Blues has a great explosive solo that is slinky and purposely driven, yet not a copycat of Slash. This song kinda feels like a more efficient November Rain or Don’t Cry type of song.
I like it. I like it a lot.
Chinese Democracy
Chinese Democracy has a cool intro that just sucks you right in (once it gets started! A la Tool, there is about a minute of background noises before it starts, but then it just wallops you over the head. It’s a harder edge songs with minimal instrumentation during the verses.
The solo and lead guitar lines sound like old Alice in Chains from the 90’s.
I like it.
If The World
If The World is the first song I’ve heard from this album that takes me to a new place. It’s got a swanky kind of beat to it and a flameno flavor guitar line. I am faintly reminded of Maroon 5 on this song. Axle is using a high pitch, yet not strained, voal styling. There isn’t a whole lot of guitar going on in this song. I may not be hearing it correctly, but it’s got a catchy chorus:
“If the world would end today /all the dreams we’ve had would all just slip away
no theres nothing more to say / if the world would end itd’ll all just slip away”
The solo at the end is like a classic Carlos Santana jam! If not my favorite, this is easily my number 2 favorite.
I like it. I like it a lot.
IRS
IRS starts out with a whiny Axl that leads into almost a spoken word type of thing but not nearly as bad as a William Shatner dibacle. IRS is a little more harder edge with another different flavor of guitar solo, almost reminiscent of Nirvana, but a little less ‘random’ than some of those were. The solo at the end is back to an AIC style, though. A lot of repetitive lyrics in this one make it a 2nd tier type of song, whereas I consider everything else that has been presented so far as a 1st tier song.
It’s ok, it’ sone of those middle of the road tunes like a Yesterdays or 14 Years but without Slash making it something you may hold out for the guitar solo for.
Madagascar
This one starts to harken back to the Estranged era of epic songs having to mesh together to create some greater menaing. Definitely a 2nd tier song with high asperations. What I really don’t like is there is about 2 minutes in th middle of the song that is audio of a movie or something. I don’t get anything out of the addition of this. A great guitar solo here would be what this song needs to help it out. It is not unheard of for GNR to change song arrangements and lyrics up, so hopefully my feedback will help 
Not my favorite. Hopefully it will be tweaked, or it may be a flop if it’s one of those highly marketed songs.
“New Song #1? - This I Love ?
Harder edge song with a screaming Axl belting out lyrics at a frantic pace. Good, short, guitar driven song with a forgetable guitar solo thrown in for good measure. Based on the number of mentions, this could be called, “Sweet Salvation”. Who knows.
It’s ok.
Rumor has it that a completed album has been delivered to the record company and that the release extravaganza details are being negotiated. After 14 years in the making, I think it’s time to just release the thing! Some details have suggested that Chinese Democracy is a multi album compilation - I’ve heard 2 albums and I’ve heard 4 albums - and after the 2008 release of the first iteration, I’ve heard 2012 for another release - I don’t know if that is the 4th, the 2nd, or something else alltogether. GNR has never been short in the suspense department.
I am very excited to hear whatever is put out, and that is SOLELY based on the 9 tracks I’ve heard thus far (I will review the last 2 songs next week). Prior to this “secret leak”, I had written off Axl Rose’s new lineup with the GNR name.
I’ve started to find live shows that he has been playing over the past few years and most of the show remains true to the shows I was accustomed to seeing in the 90’s. A few of the new songs have been played, so these are a calculated “leak”, I suspect.
At any rate, I’m very excited and hope to see something in the stores soon!
http://pelokee.wordpress.com/2008/09/12/guns-n-roses-chinese-democracy-review-so-far/
Death Magnetic album from Metallica review accuses of band being lazy with past riffs
September 15, 2008
Good review. This album just sounds lazy to me. There are so, so many riffs that are way to close to ones from their past, and the song structures are all over the place. It sounds like they started jamming, hit record, and kept it for the album. There’s too much good music out there to waste money on this.
http://caustictruths.com/blog/2008/09/11/not-so-great-cd-review-death-magnetic-metallica/
Headbanger heroics: Metallica’s back, noiser than ever with Death Magnetic album
September 11, 2008
OS ANGELES (AFP) — Headbangers of the world, rejoice: heavy metal kings Metallica are back and they’re noisier and darker than ever.”Death Magnetic,” released worldwide Friday, is more than the group’s first album in five years.
It’s the moment when the four California veterans return to their roots from quarter of a century ago, eschewing experiments with the softer stuff for full-blooded, air-splitting, guitar-whirling heavy metal.
Much of the credit for Metallica’s self-rediscovery is being attributed to their producer of the last two years, Rick Rubin.
Rubin, who has produced icons from Public Enemy to Jonny Cash and Red Hot Chili Peppers, told them reach back to the inspirations of their first and greatest 1986 album “Master of Puppets.”
“The exercise wasn’t to rewrite songs like that, but to write songs in that spirit,” Rubin told The New York Times.
Teaser snippets on the Metallica website indicate that “Death Magnetic” fits the bill.
Forget the pretentious and sometimes downright tedious tracks on previous albums “St. Anger” and “Load and Reload.”
Metallica is back doing what it does best. Guitars thrash, drums crash, vocals howl, and the pace is heart-stopping — if the brain-thudding rhythm doesn’t get you first.
The album cover features a coffin in the middle of a swirling magnetic field, an image consciously echoing the graveyard on “Master of Puppets.” Songs bear titles like “Cyanide” and “My Apocalypse.”
And fans are sighing in relief.
Metallica is still able to fill a stadium and it has the record of 57 million album sales behind it. But the release of “Death Magnetic” closes the door on an unhappy period.
The bizarre “St. Anger” album in 2003 disappointed headbangers with its dearth of solos by guitar hero Kirk Hammett. Then the next year saw a documentary film, “Some kind of monster” in which the group appeared on the verge of break-up.
Tensions between drummer Lars Ulrich and singer James Hetfield were tearing the group up. They even hired a therapist.
A session recording songs with San Francisco’s Philharmonic Orchestra in 1999 epitomized what many saw as pointless drifting into experimentation.
“The band rushed from one reinvention to another, starting with the Southern-rock infusion of 1996’s ‘Load’ and culminating in the muddled, bizarrely produced group-therapy session of 2003’s ‘St. Anger’,” Rolling Stone magazine wrote.
“No longer: ‘Death Magnetic’ is the musical equivalent of Russia’s invasion of Georgia — a sudden act of aggression from a sleeping giant.’”
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gaTjEYyX4KkG_8szUMM4W4L9Snbw
Not so great CD review: Death Magnetic - Metallica
September 11, 2008
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. All it took was one brilliant doco - 2004’s Some Kind of Monster - for the world to see just how far Metallica had come from their days as an unstoppable metal juggernaut.
As Monster showed, the band had become a bloated mess weighed down by their collective history, existing in a black hole of infighting, petty egos, private jets and - for singer James Hetfield - a stint in rehab for alcoholism.
It culminated with 2003’s rubbish record St Anger, a timid album created under a psychiatrist’s watchful eye which is almost universally unloved by the band’s millions of fans. And rightfully so.
Five years on, Death Magnetic - their ninth studio album - is Metallica’s last chance to reclaim their metal crown.
The good news is that it’s an album of firsts - the first they’ve recorded with producer Rick Rubin, the first to feature bassist Robert Trujillo, and the first with a new record label.
They should be re-energised and Death Magnetic starts with intent, as the raw riffs of That Was Just Your Life blister the speakers in a way that St Anger failed to do - even if Hetfield, now 45, sounds like he’s struggling to keep up with Lars Ulrich’s frenetic drumming and Kirk Hammet’s blistering riffs.
They keep the pace up with Broken, Beat & Scarred, All Nightmare Long and The Judas Kiss, tracks that fly by in a flurry of ridiculously fast riffs and guitar solos reminiscent of their classic 80s trilogy: 1984’s Ride the Lightning, 1986’s Master of Puppets and 1988’s Death Magnetic.
But that’s the problem, and this is where the good news ends. Metallica sound so desperate to recapture past glories they’ve started sounding like a pastiche of themselves.
Just listen to The End of the Line. Do those riffs sound familiar? They should to any ’80s Metallica fan.
Then there’s The Unforgiven III, the culmination of a trilogy that began on the Black Album. Anyone who wants to hear Hetfield sing properly should play it immediately. Everyone else, hit the delete button.
It doesn’t help that Hetfield’s lyrics are all over the place, an incohesive mess supposedly based around the theme of death. They are at best forgettable, at worst cringe-worthy.
“Love is a four-letter word,” he sings on first single The Day That Never Comes. Er, yes it is, James. What’s your point?
And Broken, Beat & Scarred’s hook of, “What don’t kill ya make ya more strong” would have linguists throwing their pens in disgust.
Ironically, Death Magnetic’s saving grace is Suicide & Redemption, a nine minute-plus instrumental in which Metallica sound like they’re trying to cram an entire career’s worth of riffs into one song.
It’s urgent, vibrant, and Hetfield doesn’t get the chance to ruin it with his poor rhyme schemes. Most importantly, it kicks serious ass.
Like Death Magnetic, it’s a small reminder of what Metallica once did better than anyone.
You kept your copy of the Black Album, right?
* What do you think of Metallica’s Death Magnetic? Post your comments below.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4689141a20855.html
Slash does review of Chinese Democracy album from Axl Rose and Guns N Roses
September 8, 2008
I just ran a Google image search for Slash and the above photo is what came up. Hm. ANYWAY, Blabbermouth reports that in a recent interview, Slash claims to have heard Axl Rose’s Chinese Democracy, a.k.a. the first Guns N’ Roses album he himself with which he himself was not involved. Here’s what Slash had to […] [img]
http://elbo.ws/post/1235095/slash-reviews-chinese-democracy/
