After 15 years of gloriously absurd drama, the most anticipated album in rock history should have been the second coming of "Sgt. Pepper."

Right?

Oh wait, Axl Rose is no Lennon-McCartney, and this isn't the summer of love.

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GUNS 'N ROSES
"Chinese Democracy"
(Geffen)

2 stars = Mediocre
Ratings explained

Ratings explained

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The reality of "Chinese Democracy," which comes out today, is that it's more likely to go down in the books not as a killer Guns 'N Roses album, but the album that took 15 years, cost millions of dollars, led to every other member leaving, won Americans a free Dr. Pepper and is really an Axl Rose solo record.

By taking so long, the biggest struggle Rose had here -- besides wrestling with his own ego -- was making an album over 15 years with 15 musicians in 14 different studios that didn't sound like an overthought, overwrought case of ProTools gone amok.

Banish any thought of GNR summoning the unhinged glory of "Appetite for Destruction." OK, there are a few moments, like an opening title track that cops the riff from Judas Priest's "Living After Midnight." As it rolls on ... and on, the songs suffer from too many ideas and too many layers of stuff. "Better," for instance, sounds so much like four genres and four eras of metal all clashing together, it's liable to give people whiplash. Even metalheads.

"There Was a Time" is a good, soaring ballad till Rose beats it to death with pure hysteria for the last three minutes or so. A lot of these songs go on a minute or two or three too long -- like a summer blockbuster overwhelmed by special effects. And, my, how those shrill vocals strain their appeal. Rose can still get up there in the register, as he displays repeatedly.

Part of Axl's new shtick seems to be borrowed from Queen, minus the irony. Shifting between rock shrieker and Broadway something-or-other, Rose sounds positively schizophrenic on bombastic ballad "Street of Dreams." He employs at least four different multi-tracked voices at once on the hard-driving "Scraped" -- one of the band's best moments -- to get across that "sometimes I feel like the world is on top of me."

That's his lyrical drift throughout much of "Chinese Democracy."

Does the album have its moments? Yeah. You have to admire how on "If the World" Rose and guitarist Buckethead merge Al Di Meola with Isaac Hayes with Nine Inch Nails and somehow hold it together. "I.R.S." flashes some of the aggression of early GNR; "Catcher in the Rye," obviously about Lennon's assassination, pulls off the Queen thing nicely; and the closing power ballad "Prostitute" has a certain soaring nobility that feels like an ending. Plus, there's plenty of wankery to satisfy the long-haired dudes who hang out in guitar shops.

It's remarkable, though, that after 15 years in the making this record would end up a victim of bad timing, dropping right after Metallica started sounding like a beast again.

Lastly, considering the thin connection to "Chinese Democracy," I wish they had just called this "Free Dr Pepper."

Dr Pepper promised a free can of soda to every American if Guns 'N Roses delivered. To apply for your coupon, go to www.drpepper.com on Sunday only.