Guns N' Roses Back With New Music

Guns N’ Roses, notoriously slow with issuing new music has come up with two new songs, “Atlas” and "Nothin'". The former, which was known as “Atlas Shrugged”, referencing the book of the same name, was originally worked up for the Chinese Democracy album.  Axl Rose, years ago, said that it didn’t have that much to do with the book but it was an inspiration.  “‘Atlas’ doesn’t have all that much to do with the book other than trying to do what you believe in and a line about shoulders not being wide enough.”  According to Bumblefoot, it was only left off of Chinese Democracy last minute because of the time restraints of the CD.  

“Atlas” starts out with a low rhythm and one of Slash’s identifiable tones, sparse, separate licks for the intro until the full rhythm kicks in after a minute.  Axl’s sweet melody is then toughened, and he gets into the heart of the song.  “I’d be the last to say, ‘don’t follow your heart’, but there’s more to what it takes to be a man than what you’ve shown.”  Slash comes down hard with a strong, but short solo but his searing work is all over the song. 

The love song,“Nothin’” is the other new track, also worked on during the 2000s.  This one lays down on an electric piano bed for the duration, an excellent piano motif is the staple.  The band holds back its rough style to keep things straightforward sticking to the chords without much improvisation.  Only Slash’s solo, in the bright spotlight of the quiet moment in the middle, gets a chance to shine instrumentally, conjuring up that original magic fans hope for, it may be his best solo of this decade – which may not be saying much since they’ve only issued 6 songs in the 2020s.

Both new tracks were produced by Axl Rose and Caram Costanzo.  The original producer 25 years ago was Sean Beavan.  

The band lineup for both songs is as follows: 

• Axl Rose – lead vocals, producer

• Duff McKagan – bass, backing vocals

• Slash – guitar

• Richard Fortus – guitar

• Brain – drums

• Dizzy Reed – keyboards

• Caram Costanzo – keyboards, mixing engineer, producer

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Robin Finck also plays guitar on “Atlas” only.  Band members have said recently that they have even more material and may one day come out with a full album.  Knowing the band’s history, it’s hard to expect anything. We'll take what we can get.