Most of the music public is happy just to be able to behold Chinese Democracy. After fifteen years and as many lineups, there is finally a new Guns N' Roses album, and we would happily listen to it, if only for curiosity's sake, without any expectations as to quality. That said, somebody has to step up to the monumental task of reviewing the album, because as all music blogs know, an album doesn't truly exist until it has  been dissected (or in some cases pilloried) in the press. There are few writers up to the task of writing objectively about the fruits of Mr. Rose's labors, but Chuck Klosterman, author of the metal memoir Fargo Rock City,  does an admirable job.

He is, of course, daunted by the task:

Reviewing Chinese Democracy is not like reviewing music. It's more like reviewing a unicorn. Should I primarily be blown away that it exists at all? Am I supposed to compare it to conventional horses? To a rhinoceros? Does its pre-existing mythology impact its actual value, or must it be examined inside a cultural vacuum, as if this creature is no more (or less) special than the remainder of the animal kingdom? I've been thinking about this record for 15 years; during that span, I've thought about this record more than I've thought about China, and maybe as much as I've thought about the principles of democracy.

After getting that out of the way, though, he gets down to business. Though the review is for the most part gushing (which is expected, since the album will be purchased by the curious but really listened to by the converted), Klosterman does point out that SURPRISE! Chinese Democracy, after fifteen years of production, shows some signs of bloat.

Particularly telling is his discussion of one line, which calls out Rose:

Rose suddenly sings an otherwise innocuous line ("But I don't want to do it") in some bizarre, quasi-Transylvanian accent, and I cannot begin to speculate as to why. I mean, one has to assume Axl thought about all of these individual choices a minimum of a thousand times over the past 15 years. Somewhere in Los Angles, there's gotta be 400 hours of DAT tape with nothing on it except multiple versions of the "Sorry" vocal. So why is this the one we finally hear? What finally made him decide, "You know, I've weighed all my options and all their potential consequences, and I'm going with the Mexican vampire accent."

Klosterman's piece is exhaustive, as is expected from the introduction. The best part though, is that after fifteen years of waiting, a Guns N' Roses geek of this magnitude is actually getting to write about the album. [AV Club]