In late April this year rumors of a new Guns "N" Roses album began to circulate, with photos of Slash working in the studio with a Marshall Jubilee 2555 (the amp he uses on his current GNR tour and the same amp he used in combination with this JCM800 on the UYI tours) and with Axl saying things like "“We are working on new stuff, I’ve got a lot of stuff together, and I played some stuff for Slash and Duff and they liked it.”
But are they able to make another good Guns 'N' Roses album?
Here are just a few of the challenges they'll need to overcome:
- Axl's last writing effort didn't leave a lot of people wanting more. Chinese Democracy was a failure in terms of sales and reviews. Sure, a lot of that can be associated to the musicians whose styles obviously can't perfectly emulate what we heard in the early days, but still.
- Everyone in the band has matured and moved on. The other members have released varying amounts of new material over the years and their styles have changed. Whatever comes out of the band is unlikely to sound like Appetite For Destruction or Use Your Illusion.
- Pressure - they can't release another Chinese Democracy.
- Axl's voice. Sure, it can sound okay sometimes, but at other times it can sound pretty bad these days.
- New circumstances. The band used to write their material in LA while sharing a room together and getting up to all kinds of things that only a young rock star can get up to. They're not at that point in their lives anymore. Their lives have changed, they have less to prove and their bond as friends is presumably weaker.
Personally, I can't imagine an album sounding like Guns "N' Roses unless Izzy Stradlin is part of the project. So far, he's been reluctant to have anything to do with the band, most recently siting 'unequal pay' as a factor in staying away from the reunion, while also having left the band previously to escape the lifestyle of being in the band. While I wouldn't rule out the idea of Izzy coming back, I think it's unlikely. This leaves the rest of the band to pick up the HUGE amount of song writing Izzy was responsible for delivering back when GnR became famous.
I'm also not sure that Slash or Duff would want to be associated with a bad album. Any thought that the album might turn out bad or sound phoned-in would turn them off the project. That's just my opinion though.
So personally, I think a new album is possible, but not 100% likely. I think it's going to be one hell of a struggle to make it a GOOD album though...