After fifteen long years of speculation, rumours and disappointment, the patience of fans of the one-time "most dangerous band in the world" looks set to finally be rewarded with the release of this, their fourth full-length studio album of original material. Despite frontman and mastermind W. Axl Rose being the sole remaining founder member, the music sounds much as it did back in the band's glory days - grandiose, massively produced, bluesy hard rock with a decidedly misanthropic vibe.

Oct 2008

'Chinese Democracy' has finally arrived. Produced by Axl Rose and Caram Costanzo, one of the most highly anticipated albums in rock history, the long-awaited 'Chinese Democracy' marks the first album of new material from Guns N' Roses since 1991's simultaneous release of 'Use Your Illusion I' and 'Use Your Illusion II'. With a frenzied energy, Guns N' Roses arrived on the music scene in the mid-'80s and rock was never the same. Now the enormously influential G'N'R is ready to rock once again.

• Rolling Stone (p.120) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "^A] great, audacious, unhinged and uncompromising hard-rock record. In other words, it sounds a lot like the Guns n' Roses you know."

Like the hard-rock equivalent of Brian Wilson's SMILE, Guns N' Roses' CHINESE DEMOCRACY was one of the greatest records that never was--a project more fable than fact, more speculation than actualization. Created over 15 years with countless producers and musicians, the album often seemed as if it would remain forever mired in the swamps of Axl Rose's legendarily unpredictable personality. When the disc finally did appear, the musical landscape had changed so significantly that many wondered if Rose's fans even still cared.
What the faithful got for their undying loyalty may not have been classic GnR, but it was an unquestionably powerful slice of enigmatic, genre-pushing hard rock which retained some the group's famously rebellious attitude. Sonically, CHINESE DEMOCRACY benefited from its long gestation period by incorporating bits of many post-SPAGHETTI INCIDENT subgenres, including nu-metal, electronica, new garage rock, and post-grunge. Luckily, even after all his bizarre, Michael Jackson-like personal travails, Rose lost little of his lyrical bite, shooting back at disbelievers with the fervor of a much younger and hungrier artist, leaving admirers wondering if perhaps the best was still yet to come.

While the 1980s Los Angeles rock scene will forever be associated with pretty-boy glam metal, it also spawned Guns N' Roses, one of the most in-your-face, streetwise, and controversial bands of the era. Axl Rose, Slash, & company's roots lay in The Stones, Aerosmith, and The New York Dolls, with a gentle touch of pop-metal edge. The act ruled critics' minds, the pop charts, and MTV in 1988 with the still revered APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION, which included the oft-covered #1 hit "Sweet Child O' Mine." The double-album USE YOUR ILLUSION continued their reign. The original band was slowly replaced, and by the late '90s only Rose remained to annually promise CHINESE DEMOCRACY, which he delivered in 2008, and while it received some critical raves, the album failed to live up to the almost impossible sales expectations.