Well, it ain't the first.

Marc said that on HTGTH last Halloween.

I have known Axl very well for 23 years and Slash for 31 years and one thing for sure, Axl does not lie. You will always get the truth form Axl. The problem is  a lot of the time you won't get any comment from Axl at all because his words have been twisted so many times. If he set a date for the record, he ment it. I heard the record in Aug 2006 (and by the way it's great)and he told me it would be out before Xmas of 2006. The problem is things change as days go by  that were unseen at the time he set those dates and thats what keeps holding  the record back.

So yeah, in August '06 Axl played Marc the album. Merck said they still had three-four days to go at that point, but Axl was getting cold feet about the finishing up the process. So those two (Marc n' Merck ) back each others stories quite nicely.

If Marc heard the 13 or so tracks slated for CD, there's a chance the rhythm parts in the end product have been tinkered, with some new Axl vocals. Based on what's gone down since, it's fair to assume Marc heard a very finished version.