To do what is the question - if Slash back it is insane to divide up the slash solos he wrote into groups of 3's and share them around like the previous bands have.

In terms of bucket doing solos - well he'd be useful for Riad, Sorry and a handful of the CD tracks. But even then would he plays robin's bits too?

3 guitarists = 1 guy playing open chords most of the time + swapping soloists in the middle of solos while the sound guy catches up.

It might have made some sense to stop anyone from having too much 'power' over Axl in the new band...but now the guy that wrote the solos (14 songs excluded) is back - it doesn't make a lot.

I think it is mostly Myles.

The actual guitar riffs are straight up rockers that could have been on UYI.

I think they need an Axl to add more dynamic lyrics, and maybe even a bit of structural change as I'll agree they are a little 'verse, chorus, verse' at times. I see them as awesome templates for GNR songs though - if you'd had the others to add their magic too.

To me Anastasia is the stand-out track that's not identical to the others. Same with Wicked Stone on his next album - there's something about those two tracks that's superior to the others.

The second half of the song live is amazing:

I remember when the album came out I liked a lot of these touches compared to the demos as at first I thought it was helping to add to a "finished" sound. However, as i've adapted to these versions of the tracks I've come around to your type of view - I love all the orchestration from  Marco Beltrami and Paul Buckmaster - however most of the other synth type stuff seems redundant. At times it feels a lot of this stuff is added because of lack of a really solid guitar melody - there's a lot of little guitar shred fills and tricks and gimmicks - but not really much you'd hum in the shower.

If I could re-do the production the things I think would help it immensely are:

1. More cohesive guitar parts. The rhythm guitars are heavily edited together and it shows. Different tones, different ambiences, obviously dozens of performances - some clearly date from alternative versions of the songs that were in different styles! Some of this cut and pasting is good for establishing a demo and songwriting - but then I would have recorded start-to-finish takes of the songs - like how they were performed live in 06 and 09 - rather than cutting the first two chords in the progression played on a telecaster in 1999, with the third chord played on a strat in 2004 in a different room.

2. Lose the drum machines. If there's one thing that makes the album sound amateurish it's the 8-bit sounding drum sounds in the background. It's nice when the real drums kick in over the top at times. Good example is IRS - the drums at the start over the soft bit would be better to not exist and then the drums could kick in when the physical drums do. These pollute almost every song and have the sound of seeing the pencil outlines on a fully painted drawing. Even if those beats were instrumental to the writing phase...they served their purpose. Lose them. It sounds like someone just forgot to mute the scratch tracks.  In general the drumming on CD is far less effective than on UYI or AFD - there's a reason for this - Brain and Frank are neutered by the presence of the digital crap.

Actually I really like those 2 songs - I think Riad has some amazing vocals that people ignore because they don't like the industrial flavour of the track. It's really hard to sing well and axl just nails it.

The reason I chose those songs isn't because they're the weakest but because they're amongst the most non-traditional. I don't have the quote at hand but in one of the interviews Axl described how his Chinese Trilogy would become more progressive with each album.

The idea was always that the first record would have the most old-gnr like numbers and the next couple would get more wild. IMO what we got is consistent with that - in that most of CD1 is basically rock stuff just arranged non-rock like except for a couple of tracks. Meanwhile note how Silkworms was withheld.

So i guess my thing is - sure the label wants Slash and Duff - but if Slash and Duff are given industrial stuff like Silkworms - I'm not sure the label will necessarily be into it.

Then again - I guess if the plan is greatest hits + 2 tracks - they could just dig out the most old bandish one - kinda like if CD1 had only been TWAT and TIL I suppose. And who knows - maybe theres also rock tracks in the vault from before Slash left.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the songs wouldn't be good. I'm just sort of thinking of the business case from the labels POV. They'll want to capitalise and do something...I'm just saying they'd want a "There Was A Time" with Slash and Duff not a Shackler's Revenge with Slash and Duff...and we don't know how many of each Axl actually has around.

LOL

I used to.

I'm a broken man.

Don't get me wrong, I'm so insanely excited about new music it's not funny. I'll buy it first second.

However this band doesn't function according to normal music business parameters. It hasn't since Axl got control. The only reason it vaguely did in the AFD era was because Axl didn't have complete control. So unless his personal circumstances change and he finds the need to do business according to industry norms  again, whatever we get will follow the normal Team Brazil patterns.

Which means things will come out, but they'll come out late, silently, with no promo or otherwise slightly incorrect.....lol

I mean it's 2016.

Axl was "looking seriously" at putting a record out next in 2014. In 2008 he joked that it could happen in 2009. But he played silkworms live 15 years ago and it's not out. FIFTEEN YEARS.

I guess one day it might happen. But everything about this reunion just says that Slash and Duff gave in and finally joined Axl's band on his terms. I've seen absolutely nothing from Axl that suggests a "compromise" that would involve him changing how he does things to suit Slash and co.

I am actually hopeful we'll see a track or two. But those of you expecting a return to the UYI era are going to see a whole lot of disappointment I think.