I've decided to wait until Tuesday night to post my review of Chinese Democracy. I figure if Axl took 14 years to put out the disc, the least I can do is put a little effort into the review. So in the meantime, here are some snippets of some reviews I've found for the disc. And do yourself a favor and read Chuck Klosterman's review in its entirety; it's very funny stuff.
"Still, I find myself impressed by how close Chinese Democracy comes to fulfilling the absurdly impossible expectation it self-generated, and I not-so-secretly wish this had actually been a triple album. I've maintained a decent living by making easy jokes about Axl Rose for the past 10 years, but what's the final truth? The final truth is this: He makes the best songs. They sound the way I want songs to sound." -- Chuck Klosterman, for The Onion's A.V. Club
"The album finds a middle ground between full-on hard rock and Rose's artier instincts. These aren't songs so much as works, sculpted into diverse musical sections with Rose's rotating cast of players." -- Detroit Free Press
"Listening to Chinese Democracy, you can hear -- and appreciate -- how much time went into these songs. Nearly every one of these 14 cuts is a massive epic crammed with umpteen parts, endless twists and turns, and layer upon layer of overdubs: A Great Wall of guitars from Bumblefoot, Buckethead and others, sure, but also electronica beats and loops, horns, strings, choirs, sound effects, you name it. And, amazingly, it all works: Instead of a bloated, indecisive, self-indulgent mess, Rose -- whose corroded, Joplin-esque shriek is still capable of shattering glass -- has created an audacious, over-the-top masterpiece that almost justifies all the years and money and mayhem and hype." -- Winnipeg Sun
"Democracy may not have the metal band's classic lineup, but lone original GNR member and group mastermind Rose has crafted the kind of record that makes superlatives tumble like a waterfall: exciting, urgent, frenzied, heavy, melodic, quirky, melodramatic, and occasionally overbaked. It demands that you hit the repeat button after the first listen for both the hard-rocking highs and the head-scratching lows." -- The Boston Globe
"As for Better, it's probably the disc's finest moment, on par with anything recorded under the Guns banner. The tune begins with Axl singing in an almost ghostly falsetto, a new voice for the vocalist with an arsenal of them, before the tune breaks into its rumbling assault, a demonic, wailing Axl once again out for destruction." -- Calgary Herald
"Axl Rose may have seriously tested his fan's patience but Chinese Democracy is a pretty fine payback - the kind of ambitious and shameless album rock bands just don't make these days." -- Herald Sun
"What's clear within the first moments of Chinese Democracy is that Rose still has his snarl. His voice always was a power tool with endless precision settings, and on Better he opens by speak-singing in a tender falsetto before the guitars kick in and he sandblasts away at the melody." -- TIME
"…making this album has transformed Rose from a hungry contrarian to a full-blown desert prophet, howling mightily in protest against a pop industry that encourages its stars to innovate only within the realm of what sells best. At the same time, he's resisted the nostalgia that would have sent him after a purer time or sound, preferring to invest in a foggy future. Purity is the opposite of what Rose seeks on Chinese Democracy. Convolution is everything as he spirals toward a total sound even he can't quite apprehend." -- Los Angeles Times
"The first Guns N' Roses album of new, original songs since the first Bush administration is a great, audacious, unhinged and uncompromising hard-rock record. In other words, it sounds a lot like the Guns N' Roses you know." -- Rolling Stone
"This record is an uncompromising, fully-focused, hard rock monster." -- BBC
"There are pockets on Chinese Democracy as good as anything Axl Rose has ever recorded. Even if the 14 new tracks don't improve on Appetite For Destruction, they're a long way off from every rock fan over 30's worst nightmare: a fat Axl with dreadlocks making a techno record about political life in Beijing with some dude in a Kentucky Fried Chicken hat." -- National Post
"Chinese Democracy is an absorbing, unashamedly indulgent and at times thrilling piece of work that eclipses the Illusion albums." -- MOJO
"Yes, it's overblown, overindulgent and totally over-the-top, but it is also audacious, defiant and ambitious beyond belief. It's every bit as gigantic-sounding as you'd expect, given its unbelievable back story and the parties -- namely, one W. Axl Rose -- involved." -- The Detroit News
"All you GN'R fans and haters ready to slag the disc because it took forever to finish, suck up the venom. Axl made a kickass rock record." -- NY Post
Song of the day: 1985 by Bowling For Soup
Chinese Democracy: What They're Saying
