Finally

As a longtime Guns N’ Roses fan, it’s difficult for me to believe I was just 9 years old when the grandiose Use Your Illusion I and II were released. Since then, Axl Rose has spent countless years in studios all over the world attempting to perfect the opus that would come to be called Chinese Democracy.

Along the path to Democracy, original members Slash, Izzy Stradlin, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum exited the band, and a host of new cast members, including a dude with a KFC bucket on his head, were welcomed into the fold.

What ended up on disc is at once better than I had expected after all this time. The title track is an effective reintroduction to Rose’s banshee wail, still aggro after all these years, and a formal introduction to Ron Thal, Richard Fortus and Brian “Buckethead” Carroll’s fortified wall of guitar.

“Catcher in the Rye” is the band at their stadium-filling best, with soaring chorus after soaring verse, and “Better” is the best track Axl has written since “Estranged” and “November Rain.” “Street of Dreams” and “Prostitute” both play on the soft/loud/piano/guitar interplay of past GnR epics.

A few songs don’t work as well. “Madagascar” is clogged with an orchestra, some tape loops of Martin Luther King Jr. and more Cool Hand Luke quotes.

“Sorry,” with guest vocals by Sebastian Bach, is a meandering mess. Axl never was much for filler, and in trying to load Chinese Democracy with every trick in the GnR canon, several tracks feel forced.

Chinese Democracy, 17 years in the making, is a shit-hot 50-minute hard rock album stretched out to 72 minutes by way of sporadic overindulgences. Of course, when the artist is Axl Rose, a man synonymous with overindulgence and with a penchant for reclusion, perhaps we should just be happy this long-awaited album exists at all.