Guns n Roses Ready to Pull the Trigger?

Acting as a sort of trashy, drug addicted bridge between the glam metal of the 80's and the alt-rock of the 90's, Guns N' Roses released one of the great metal albums of all time with 1987's Appetite for Destruction. The band seemingly imploded in after the bloated curiosities that are Use Your Illusion I and II and the covers collection The Spaghetti Incident, but the endless sessions for the unreleased Chinese Democracy have become a pop culture punch line. Tentatively begun in 1994, the album will contains the performances of at least a dozen current and former members, culled from 14 years of sessions. Most attribute the lack of progress and the continual canceling of release dates in the past 18 months to singer Axl Rose's perfectionist-bordering on control freak-tendencies, which leave him the last man standing from Guns N' Roses time as biggest group on the planet.
The band's draconian legal reaction to any leaks have raised some eyebrows, the latest incident resulting in the FBI arrest of Kevin Cowgill, who posted 9 finished sounding tracks onto his blog antiquiet.com. He awaits prosecution, the band insists that the focus is on finding the source of the leak. As of a three year old New York Times article, the costs have exceeded $15 million dollars, making it the most expensive unreleased recording of all time. Claims that all recording had been completed in early 2007 turned out to be false, as would be assurances that it would be released by Christmas 2007.
But now it seems that Billboard.com reports that it will be on shelves before the year is out, but only at Best Buy who have an exclusive retail deal, much as The Eagles had with Wal-Mart for their Long Road Out of Eden. So, what should the curious fan expect? Definitely not the kind of epic sounding hard rock they once specialized in-Axl has favored a more adventurous brand of metal with industrial influences at least since he recruited avant-garde metal guitarist Buckethead to join the band in 2000. He has since left the band, but the new material bears more similarities to a more rockist Nine Inch Nails than "Paradise City" or "November Rain". The first single "Shackler's Revenge", debuted on the video game Rock Band 2, and with grinding, guttural verses and a cleanly sung chorus, sounds more like a death metal band reclining on La-Z Boys than anything the band has recorded thus far. Whether or not you think the band is artistically significant, the idea of an unfinished work is magnetic to music fans. Rumored guest spots by Brian May, Shaquille O'Neal, and Dave Navarro can only raise the interest level even higher.