Album Reviews

Guns N' Roses `Chinese Democracy' (Universal)

Seventeen years after Guns N' Roses' last studio album, the hard rock band has finally released its sixth album, ``Chinese Democracy.'' It took 13 years for the band to record and finalize the album, and the effort shows. Rolling Stone magazine described the album as a ``great, audacious, unhinged and uncompromising hard-rock record.''

The album's 14 tracks, such as ``Chinese Democracy,'' ``Better,'' ``Prostitute'' and ``Riad N' the Bedouins,'' are intense and almost overwhelming. Frontman Axl Rose still has his screeching voice, but the rest of the band may be virtually unrecognizable. There are still some good guitar riffs, but fans may miss ex-band members Slash and Izzy Stradlin.

-Cathy Rose A. Garcia