Slight Rant, I am quite sick and tired of hearing people use these phrases to somehow judge the album. "It's a good album but it is not "mindblowing". The entire band did NOT describe the songs like this and Axl has NEVER said anything to this effect. Tommy said these quotes in 2004. My problem is that all of this is subjective, including his opinion. To him, a guy who came from a very minimalist punk, singer songwriter band, songs with 32 piece orchestras, 2 keyboard players, three guitar players and Axl may be "mindblowing". Seriously, there is a lot of shit going on in these songs. It is not meat and potato rock and roll. It actually is pretty complex on some songs. You have to mix up to 10 different things. This is not three chord generic rock....especially Track 2 and If The World. Now you can say it is too busy, but to me it is not.....outside of Maddy, not at all. I love how If The World and Track 2 have space and atmosphere to the songs. Every second does not have to be covered by Slither type generic rock riffs. Let the song breath ......let's listen to other instruments.

David Fricke, one of the most respected critics in rock and roll has a pretty nice outlook on these tracks and I, myself could not have said it better....

"Three big, dark, snarling new songs from the longest-awaited album ever."

"'Chinese Democracy is nearly here - based on these nine tracks, reportedly in final mastered form - and its deeply weird, in epic-reach and fuck-your-expectation ways that make me want to hear the whole thing pronto, in something better than this pinched-digital fidelity.  Of the new songs, "Rhiad and the Bedouins" is the closest to the snarling-guitar rumpus of Appetite for Destruction.  "If the World" and a third, untitled number are - like the previously leaked "There Was a Time" - midtempo, big production orgies, the former with a dusky Seventies-R&B flair, the latter cresting in an hammering chorus with singer Axl Rose at the peak of his shriek.  The effect is bleak and brawling, like Elton John's Madman Across the Water reset in a ravaged hard-rock Hollywood."    - David Fricke