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Which is a shame, because on its own merit Shackler’s Revenge is a fun ride, despite some weighty subject matter owing to the song’s lyrics tackling America’s school shooting epidemic.

guitarists – NIN’s Robin Finck, Jane’s Addiction’s Dave Navarro, ex-Circus Of Power man Gary Sunshine and Paul Tobias – pointed towards the overkill that would define the reconfigured Guns N’ Roses.Still, every Guns N’ Roses album has its splashes of brilliance, and all were taken into consideration when assembling this ranking of the group’s 15 greatest songs. To me, had they trimmed the fat and consolidated it into twelve or fourteen songs, it would have been bulletproof. Named after a girl and opening with a dulcet clean guitar, it plants all the clues you’d need to assume a soppy ballad lies ahead – until the drums smack barely 30 seconds in. Izzy takes a rare crack at lead guitar on the first half of the first solo, laying down taut blues licks before Slash ignites his fretboard with one of the most heroic outro solos this side of Led Zeppelin. On an album that would flirt with everything from folk to prog, Rose and co wisely got everybody on board with a burst of old-school aggro.

Performed live for a few years before being recorded for the Days of Thunder soundtrack (it later appeared on Use Your Illusion II), GnR’s version has all the beauty of Bob Dylan’s original, although the crashing guitars, the scratchy singing and the crystal-clear production of Mike Clink – who staffed the dials for every album bar Chinese Democracy – makes it quintessentially them.There are some great songs across those two albums, but that song in particular, I can just put it on and drive. The title track opens the album with a minute of distant, pounding drums and dissonant guitars before breaking into an unabashedly industrial riff. Coming in on Duff McKagan’s trademark chorused bass, a guitar riff that’s a close cousin of Appetite For Destruction-era album cut Mr. Slash and Stradlin trade chugging, serpentine riffs atop one of McKagan and drummer Matt Sorum’s most seductive grooves, as Rose bitterly laments a failed relationship in stunning detail. To Axl, Slash and Duff, if you’re reading this, maybe consider incorporating more of these songs into the next leg of your Not in This Lifetime Tour.