"All I've got is precious time," claims Axl Rose less than three minutes into 'Chinese Democracy'. The meticulously assembled album credits tell a different story. In the 14 years spent on his magnum opus, the only remaining original member of Guns N' Roses has had 22 assistant engineers, five producers, seven people handling "Additional Pro Tools", five guitarists, and sessions in 14 studios across four cities.

It's a long, unnecessarily detailed list but one that helps explain how all that time (and an estimated $15-million) was spent. Not on composing the songs; several tracks have been doing the rounds online and in concert since 2001. Not on writing the lyrics; it doesn't take long to come up with "I hoped she'd never leave me/ Please God you must believe me". But on obsessively tweaking every second of the record until the sound approximated the apparent maelstrom in his head.

So you get lavish, cinematic intros; whiny Axl, droning Axl, distorted Axl and wailing Axl singing all at once; guitar solos piled on top of other guitar solos; and, on 'Madagascar', the simultaneous use of the returning "failure to communicate" lecture, six-string noodling, Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, more wild soloing, and dialogue from the films 'Seven', 'Casualties Of War', 'Braveheart', and 'Mississippi Burning'.

Nothing as simple as 'Patience' or direct as 'Paradise City' then. Each of the 14 songs here packs into roughly five minutes all the mood swings and melodrama of 12-minute 'Use Your Illusion' epics 'Civil War', 'November Rain' and 'Estranged', But even as choirs, orchestras, electro beats, dated R&B rhythms and leftover '90s industrial riffage do battle, Rose's melodies somehow still break on through as something to cling to.

Beyond the intro nicked from White Zombie (remember them?) and some unremarkable verses, 'Shackler's Revenge' has the type of choruses that once made GNR the most dangerous band in the world. 'Street Of Dreams' overcomes the singer's unexplained Transylvanian accent to blow up into a grand celebration of his idols Lennon, McCartney, Elton John and Queen. 'Catcher In The Rye' is the band's biggest 'Hey Jude' moment ever and the take-no-prisoners title track and 'I.R.S.' are the closest the mad mastermind comes to ball-busting rocking out with that characteristic howl in full flight.

'Better' too reveals that, in the studio at least, Rose's voice has lost little of its power but the song itself, like the discordant mess 'Riad N' The Bedouins', sounds unfinished and cobbled together rather than meticulously crafted like the rest of 'Chinese Democracy'.

It's hard to believe, but did Axl actually run out of his precious time?