Whew, the new Guns-n-Roses album is officially not bad!
And then goes on to describe what must be THE WORST RECORD HUMANS COULD POSSIBLY CREATE.
As feared, this now mythical album is one-third nu metal. Meaning: unabashedly inorganic, monochromatic, Korn-influenced guitar riffs. Luckily, thousands of truly twisted guitar solos decorate said riffs, attacking from all angles, as Chinese Democracy’s songs twist, break down, and morph. A woman sings over what could be a Garbage outtake that suddenly becomes a heavy blues ballad. Symphonic trip-hop with funky nylon string guitar leads Axl’s layered voices into a capella metal do-wop
The mind reels. Chinese Democracy is, as many people know by now, a record that was never supposed to actually be made. The prolonged rumor of its production was a running joke that we all expected would make for a decent half-obscure reference or at the very least an annual April Fools' gag. I suppose, then, that the corporeal form taken by this sort of conceptual humor can only be this unintentionally funny.
But Pro-Tools also drowns the gentle guitar of “Sorry” in gross digital gravy, and helps “FBI” sound like Sarah McLachlan. In the time this album took to make, the studio trick where a song (in this case “Prostitute”) dramatically shrinks for a moment, into a tin can, before suddenly expanding back to its regular size, became tired. The new G-n-R sometimes reeks of the 90’s, when reactionary producers started thinking even heavy metal needed little dance beats in it.
Good God I hope I never have to actually listen to this album. There's no way it can be anywhere near as entertaining as its description. I just wonder what unimaginable sonic horror could possibly meet the reviewer's criteria to qualify as "bad".
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