Guns N' Roses their second new song since the return of Duff McKagan and Slash this Friday, the 24th. Just like "Absurd," the track responsible for breaking the 13-year hiatus without new material, "Hard Skool" is another recycled song from the sessions for the controversial Chinese Democracy (2008).
The band is following a formula before releasing new music: first, the song appears on tour, either in the setlist or during soundchecks, and then it's released on streaming platforms without major announcements or promises for the future.
To date, there is no real information about the band's next album, despite the fact that a new record project has been confirmed by members and crew. Since their reunion in 2016, Duff and Slash have remained productive in side projects – the bassist released the solo album Tenderness (2019) and the guitarist's collaboration with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators yielded Living The Dream (2018) and an album ready for 2022 – but all the inspiration of Guns N' Roses seems stagnant in the remaining material from Chinese Democracy .
It's impossible to know the reasons for the band's return to this eternally postponed project. Is it a closing of a cycle, an artistic reunion, or a matter of ego? Perhaps the plan is to finish the trilogy left aside in the past . Whatever the case, fans estimate that there are at least 24 tracks from the album sessions, including discarded, incomplete, and instrumental versions, with "Silk Worms" (now "Absurd") and "Hard Skool" mentioned in the list , while other sources cite songs that never saw the light of day.
If future releases continue in this direction, Guns N' Roses' highly anticipated seventh studio album could be entirely filled with past inventions, recycled by the current members and with a renewed feel, but still haunted by the ghost of a past that won't return – and wouldn't need to.
Axl Rose 's voice has changed (and that's not the end of the world), the relationships between the musicians have matured, there are new members in the equation, and millions of fans are ready for the next chapter, having never abandoned the group's legacy. Even the way we consume music has changed. Isn't it time to move on?
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