Come all ye faithful and gather ’round. Welcome to the Axl Rose show, a reality where budget concerns, time constraints and logic are all nonexistent.

It’s hard to honestly call Chinese Democracy a Guns N’ Roses album considering Rose is the only member left of any past incarnation of the band. The current GN’R is more like Axl N’ Friends — though perhaps “friends” is used a bit loosely here. Axl N’ Whoever the Hell was Dumb Enough to Put up with Axl’s Bullshit seems more appropriate.

While other musicians have co-writer credits on the album (music, not lyrics), this is Axl’s sideshow. He’s not a frontman here; he’s an iron-fisted ruler. It’s Rose’s circus, and you’ll play what you’re told. Chinese Democracy is an apt title considering the current GN’R is a one-party state.

From the outset, Democracy‘s production stands out the most: It’s so bombastic that it sounds like Rose doesn’t want fans to hear the music. No, he wants to cram it down their throats in some sort of bizarre fist-fucking ritual. Guitar overdubs at times approach a half-dozen. Piano, strings, hip-hop beats, electronic squeaks here and there, and drums all bombard the listener like a tidal wave. And that’s not a compliment. The album’s overproduction makes Queen’s A Night at the Opera sound like Venom’s Welcome to Hell.

That said, Chinese Democracy is an engaging listen, if only because it’s a perfect case study for a psychology dissertation on the ego. Thus, it is no surprise that this album is more Use Your Illusion than Appetite for Destruction in terms of song structures.

Ballads and slower-tempo cuts outnumber the rockers, with the former making the album and the latter breaking it. Songs like “If the World” and “Street of Dreams” start off as slow think-pieces and, as a result, have to go somewhere in order to keep the listener’s attention. Rose can’t just rely on a driving beat and a do-nothing riff in order to carry a song with slower tracks.

This explains why GN’R crafts epics instead of actual ballads. “Sweet Child o’ Mine” and “November Rain” had to go somewhere, lest they be left in the dust of “Welcome to the Jungle” or “You Could Be Mine.” The rock songs on Democracy, like the title track and “Scraped,” are simply limp-dick, half-assed attempts to rekindle the fire GN’R once had that ultimately fail to go anywhere.

It’s the slower songs where guitars actually sound like guitars, too. The pure, stylish, blues-tone solos that used to be supplied by former lead guitarist Slash are present in “Prostitute,” “Sorry” and “Catcher in the Rye.” The rockers, however, feature guitars that sound like anything but guitars. The title track opens with what sounds like a guitar processed through a cheese grater, the solo for “Scraped” features a guitar being put through a wood chipper and the end of “Riad N’ the Bedouins” resembles something that Pro Tools coughed up after a cigarette binge.

In addition, it’s the slower numbers where Rose’s lyrics are the most affecting. The chorus for “Sorry” includes the acerbic line, “I’m sorry for you, not sorry for me/ You don’t know who you can trust now or you should believe.” A song discussing truth, “Sorry” is most likely aimed at any and all of his former bandmates who have dissed him in the press. And lyrically he does indeed kick their asses, as he promises in this song.

Second single “Better” also has “woe is me” lyrics: “No one ever told me when I was alone/ They just thought I’d know better … better.” The repeated lament is the most heartfelt moment of the entire record, but it’s the way Rose sings it that truly matters: He doesn’t ask for your pity — he demands it.

Whether it was intentional or not, “There Was a Time” is the centerpiece of Democracy and its best song. At nearly seven minutes, it is also the album’s longest song that features two guitar solos including the album’s longest (and best) at just shy of two minutes. The song opens with Rose accompanied by a hip-hop beat, strings and wailing guitar, but the strings eventually take over until the drums and power chords kick in. Then it turns into a piano rock song until finally building to a crescendo that finds the only point in this hour-long excursion where Rose sounds like the Rose of old.

Speaking of which, Rose downplays his classic screech in favor of his underused real singing voice. Perhaps it’s because he can’t hit those notes anymore or maybe it’s because he just didn’t bother to try. After all, why would he when he has a multi-multi-multi-million dollar production with which to cover himself? When Rose does try to sound like Rose circa 1988, his voice just sounds anemic and hollow. Maybe his cornrows were braided too tight. Or not tight enough.

In the end, it’s just a goddamn miracle that Chinese Democracy is on the shelves. That in itself is a victory for Axl Rose. However, for people who have waited any of the 17 years since the Use Your Illusion twins (I’m not counting that terrible covers album), it seems like there should be more here. “That’s it?” may very well be the prevailing question of the general populace this week. Democracy just isn’t the genre-defining record that it’s being heralded as in the press. After this long, an album that’s simply a step above respectable isn’t enough.

3 stars out of 5