Tampa Calling

The most hyped record in rock history begins with a big noise — but it’s ultimately more of a whimper than a bang. The opening title-track amounting to a Pro Tools mess of guitar processing that pours out of the speakers loud and hard but never rocks, never swings, never grabs you the way, say, the entire first side of Appetite for Destruction did. Axl Rose’s voice, though, remains an awesomely sadistic growl, a reminder that, yes, it has truly been missed during the past 15 years.

Chinese Democracy improves with the industrial-informed freak out “Shackler’s Revenge” and again with the muscular guitar kiss-off “Better” – because no one delivers bitter quite like Axl. The same theme is explored on the power ballad “Street of Dreams” (previously leaked as “The Blues”). Keyboards, strings, face-melting guitar solos (courtesy of both Buckethead and Robin Finkck), it’s Axl, the music mad man genius at his post-modern Wall of Sound best. The only bummer is when the singer dips into his lower register. I can’t help but hear Forgetting Sarah Marshall’s “Dracula’s Lament.”

On “If the World” the last Gunner standing strikes out with a regrettable hodgepodge of moody rave beats, Spanish guitar and banal lyrics. But Rose rebounds with Power Ballad No. 2, the six-minute-plus “There Was a Time,” another ode to a woman who did him wrong punctuated by a wonderfully serpentine guitar solo by Finck or Buckethead (both are credited with a solo on the track). And Rose’s lyric for “There Was a Time” is a fabulously decadent tale straight from the ‘Bu. “Social class and registers, cocaine in the hall,” he snarls. “All the way from California, on the way to your next call.”

The equally grandiose and melodic “Catcher in the Rye” is another fortified piano and guitar keeper about the state of Rose’s mental health. “If I thought that I was crazy,” he muses. “Well, I’d guess I’d have more fun.” The song clocks in just under six minutes and then we’re met with “Scraped,” an awfully pedestrian modern rock track that gives way to the only slightly meatier arena rocker “Riad N’ The Bedouins.” By this point the record is dragging and the woe-is-me downer “Sorry” brings the album to its knees. But not down for the count.

Finally, with track 11, “I.R.S.,” we get a rocker that, y’know, rocks with urgency, at least fro the most part. The slow building blowout “Madagascar” also holds up, as does the sentimental piano valentine “This I Love.” And that’s where the disc should end. But it doesn’t. Rose bids farewell with the most piss-poor power ballad of the bunch, “Prostitute.”

On balance, Chinese Democracy is better than the vast majority of hard rock records being peddled these days. Critics would be hailing it as a minor masterpiece if a new band had issued this 71-minute behemoth. But it’s Chinese “fucking” Democracy, a record that took 15 years to make and boasts four pages of credits! Yet, there’s no “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Stairway to Heaven” or even a song that holds up to “November Rain.” 3.5 stars

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