Appetite For Destruction [PA] - Guns N' Roses > Reviews > Lest We Forget

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Groundbreaking
Lyrics	Thought-provoking
Quality and consistency of tracks	Flawless
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Outstanding
Value for Money

Advantages:	-
Disadvantages:	-

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Whatever self parody Guns N` Roses ended up becoming amongst the law suits, tantrums and rock and roll excesses, I must be remembered that there was a time when they were the cutting edge of hard rock. They certainly looked and acted the part, but underneath the sleazy theatrics and rock and roll clichés were a bunch of musicians who knew how to write fantastic songs and their debut album Appetite for Destruction stands as testament to this.

Through out the early eighties the various members who were to gel into one of the finest street rock bands of its time paid their dues with the struggling musicians of its time. Some of these bands came and went without troubling the music press too much, such as Hollywood Rose, the band that first through singer Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin, and Road Crew the band that saw the other three members of the band united. Other bands such as LA Guns, which temporarily featured Axl Rose on vocals, went on to success, but this melting pot of wannabees eventually threw together the original line up of Guns N` Roses and in 1987 the debut album was released to critical acclaim. Fusing a street rock attitude with a hard rock sound G N`R managed to create a unique identity that set them apart from the other contenders. Add to that a lyrical input that was at once close to the bone, but representative of the world they had fought their way through and you have the heart of G N`R. These are not songs of love and romance that other west coast bands were putting out at the time, this is music of the back streets, played by people who knew those territories well.

What was to become one of their most famous songs kick-starts the album, a guitars razor riff spirals in to Axls screams and it is Welcome To The Jungle. Guitar riffs and lead breaks fire off left right and centre as the singer introduces us to the bad side of LA were the band came together. Its a driving song with a solid backbone, almost AC/DC like in places but still with their own American west coast identity. And as that song leaves you a solidary bass riff starts up, drums kick in and your off again with Its So Easy. There are 12 songs on this album, all solid rock songs all classics and all very original and I don't need to give you a track by track breakdown, listening to the album will do a better job of that anyway, but certain songs do highlight what is great about this album. Mr Brownstone, a song about the pitfalls of heroin, has a different groove to it than most of the other songs, still a hard hitting rocker but allowing the band to show the range of styles you can fit inside the rock genre. Another big song follows it, the epic Paradise City, a rock anthem if ever there was one. A slower build up, full harmonies from all concerned, all the time tension building until a police whistle signals the time to unleash and all hell breaks loose musically. Another slice of the dark side of their Hollywood slum roots and set to one of the most easily identified rock songs ever.

My Michelle exposes the punk roots of the likes of bassist Duff McKagan, a rock verse and a punk chorus hot wired into a biting and sinister song of a young girl trapped in a dark and lonely place. Sweet Child O `Mine, what can I say, thee classic rock ballad, fast enough to stand apart from the slushy outpourings of most bands efforts at this type of song and one of the all time great guitar riffs. This song sees Axl in unusually reflective mood extolling his feelings for the love of his life. Your Crazy flips the mood over into full on a punk meets rock thrash out, these two songs showing the two extremes of the bands dynamic range.

The album does contain a lot of swearing, but that's not nearly as shocking in this day and age as it was when this was released, but the language is the language of their world and does nt seem to be put in for shock value, its just the way they talk, not contrived or calculated just the way it is. The album does sound as fresh today as it did when it first hit the streets back in 1987. Musically this is the bastard child of Hanoi Rocks, a much underrated band of the early eighties, and Axl himself has admitted that if Hanoi Rocks had not split then there would not have been a market for G N`R. It contains similar threads to bands such as Faster Pussycat, L.A. Guns and when they let the groove take over, Bang Tango but somehow managed to stand on the shoulders of these temporary giants and go the distance. G N`R may have had their day but at least you have a great album to remember them by, not to mention Slash and Duffs new art attack Velvet Revolver.