WhazUp

Oh yeah Slash should have been more faithful to the era and add fretless elephant noises nobody cares about to the middle section lol

From my perspective, the lead section in the middle of Monsters was pretty much the only clearly discernable thing in the cell phone recording and I vastly perfer Slash's additions to it on this new version Slash gave it this bluesy take that blends the old with the new and gives it more of the "GNR feel" but also gave that section a cool repeated motif with the string bending starting note that kicks off each phrase I love Buckethead and Fink's work don't get me wrong, but when I hear that middle section in particular to me it is one of the most "Illusions era" guitar moments since the 90s in GNR-land IMO and it just feels like Dorothy and Toto finally landed back home where they should be

I dunno, replace the electronic drums on Monsters with Matt Sorum and that could easily be a VR track with Scott singing the lower parts. I don't think it is hard to imagine the concept that Slash has matured since he left GNR in '96 and is open to stuff. Its still heavy drop D rock music - it isn't like this is genre hopping that much, you know? Even The General, it has more electronic drums than something Slash would do solo but the song itself is still basically just a rock song with lots of distorted vocal effects and sitar samples

I am fairly certain, at this point in time especially after listening to it on good headphones most of these 2 days and not my phone which is where my first listen occured, that it is Slash on all lead parts save for the second half of the outro solo of Monsters which is Fortus TG has Slash's signature wah sound and listening closely the runs are very Slash-esque especially when comparing to the Slash-isms I heard live a few weeks ago

His first solo is my favorite of all the solos he has done on the reworked CD stuff, it is simple and bluesy and has some repeated licks that make it seem just as much a secondary hook as it is a solo

This surreal feeling of finally hearing the cell phone leak is on the feeling I felt when HS leaked and we finally heard the rest of that mythical Checkmate clip And having Slash on it is the cherry on top

Random tin-foil theory, the song is about an abusive relationship between the kid and the parent, maybe the parent acted more like a "General" (dictator) more than a parent, and it was a theme inspired when Axl saw Brain's working title for it?

My theory, and again this is just a theory, is that the idea of putting this on vinyl as an exclusive as majorly fucked with the flow of everything They already are limiting themselves by the running time of the 7' vinyl - and I think none of us to this day are sure how they are going to exactly go about it. Are they only putting The General on there, and Monsters will be linked to it on streaming sites? Are they cramming both on the 7' and sacrificing audio quality to do so? Are they saving Monsters for the B-side of Atlas or something as a way to elongate the saga of The General's story across two releases? I think once the vinyl is released and we see what was exactly done and how things become clearer. But I definitely think the musical links are there to confidently say they are meant to be consumed as a singular journey artistically

I tend to think of The General / Monsters as something like Holiday with Green Day - two distinctly different songs meant to be linked right after each other for a singular whole. Not necessarily one singular song, but one singular journey The Elton John one though fitting in terms of two different compositions linked together but this time for one long singular song

The New Age section is that way my dude >>>

Yeah in the outro solo I hear Slash kick off the soloing but then for the last 30-40 seconds until the end I hear who I assume is Richard take over, you can hear the guitar tone go from the thick Les Paul tone to like a brighter and thinner tone. I like it, gives Richard some time to shine and it kind of fits because Slash and Richard live have done plenty of solo trade-offs over these years (KOHD, Wish You Were Here, etc.)

I get if you personally dislike the tracks but... c'mon we are hardcore GNR fans enjoying two tracks and mostly everyone here are enjoying them and enjoying the excitement of hearing new stuff I am not sure what is to be gained by coming in only to say "the tracks suck and people are circlejerking over it" over and over for multiple posts lol.

Yes, how dare artists create art based on their life experiences - Axl is 60 so apparently he has aged out of being a survivor of abuse? The world needs musicians and artists creating art and putting it out there in the world. I get personally disliking the tracks, but man your post is coming in hot for no reason about it all

Yes for sure, I believe that to be Fortus too. That said both of their parts sound fantastic, be it Richard's ending part or Slash's really melodic middle solo

I dunno, in San Diego a few weeks ago Slash was great live! He was the star of the show, everyone around me were super into his leads. I think post-2016 Slash gets a bad rep

I think the one-two punch of both compositions together, especially in terms of progression of the subject matter of both songs, are well worth the hype - personally speaking I was taken aback by The General this morning hearing it for the first time, but many listens after it clicked for me sonically and mixing aside I think both songs are great

It is such a crazy chain of stuff lol so we (the fans) were right that "the parts we heard somewhere" Axl mentioned was indeed the pre-show orchestra music.... But the song we thought it was ended up being another song tied to The General that used parts of the orchestra, and The General was actually another song that used other parts of the orchestral intro This whole thing is like trying to explain the Lannister family tree to someone who doesn't know Game of Thrones

People are excited to finally get GNR tunes we haven't heard before in various forms, I am enjoying people being hyped up and stoked about it. I would much rather that than the alternative lol Plus Monsters in particular to me is fantastic

And the ironic thing to me is, it really isn't even that far away from Slash's stylistic wheelhouse. A song like Monsters could have easily been a Velvet Revolver song with Scott singing in that lower vocal style and Matt laying down an acoustic drum beat like Slither's intro over it A lot of this song and something like Perhaps sounds like stuff Slash and Axl could have released in 1998 if they stayed together long enough. Same with Street of Dreams, This I Love, CITR, etc. So far Slash has added so much stuff back into GNR that blends the two eras together and to me it works well

The bridge to Monsters reminds me so much of the songs Axl recorded for Sebastion Bach's Angel Down, raspy and angry sounding

I don't mind the effects and overall arrangements of it all, to me they mix the whole vibe of these two songs which both of them seem to be expressing two sides of two different individuals from my interpretation. Axl sounds fantastic in my opinion, I think any faults I can find are due to the songs themselves (be it the initial MP3 leaks or the Youtube one that has both linked together) not being in proper release-ready fidelity

Listening one last time real quick, now this time on headphones again, I am convinced the ending solo on The General is for sure Slash

I gotta take a break from listening to these so I am not tired of it by the time its out there in better quality lol gonna take a brief detour to the Super Deluxe version of Prince's "Diamonds and Pearls" that just came out That said I think myself and others have really needed this, some fresh GNR tracks finally

Both tracks are great - The General at first listen I was a bit like "wtf is this" but now it already has grown on me a ton Monsters I loved straight away

I think one thing too that makes this so surreal... this marks truly the first "new" song/songs that we haven't already heard in some form - HS, Perhaps, and Absurd were already long listened to by us Until today, The General / Monsters were uncharted territory beyond a crappy cell phone leak. I was great hearing Axl vocals and melodies I hadn't already memorized in my head lol