I'm telling you, if this album was released in 2002 the way it was in the demo's it would have been hailed big time. The worst thing that happened was that it went from a single album with a lot of left overs and ideas, to a trilogy, then to four albums. I think things got spread out thin. Too much thinking went into other albums (like saving The General for the last album) than focusing on 'THE' album. Also, something happened with the band in 05-06 when Axl started partying again. I don't know what, but that's when Merck was talking about renting studios and Axl not being able to work because he couldn't find his "muse." Maybe he lost confidence in the music and started adding shit to it.

The sad thing about CD is that great songs are layered with needless effects, guitars, multi vocals... Basically its been produced to death. I can't really argue with a lot of negative reviews mainly because the songs were better before.

It's a strange day, man. Real strange. Mostly because I'm still pumped for future releases.