Fourteen years is a long time to take in making an album, but that’s exactly how long Axl Rose (and the rotating cast of studio musicians he’s somehow legally allowed to call Guns N’ Roses) took to complete the now-mythical “Chinese Democracy.” As a point of reference, the Panama Canal, the Eiffel Tower and the Hoover Damn were all finished faster. During that time, hundreds of bands have risen to stardom only to fizzle out again, and the musical culture of this country has swung wildly from where it was for GN’R’s last original releases, 1992’s “Use Your Illusion” and “Use Your Illusion II,” released simultaneously. It would not be irrational to expect an album started during Clinton’s first term to be an outdated, irrelevant dinosaur. Fortunately, this is not the case.

One thing is clear from the first few moments of the title track, which rises suspensefully from the background sound of a windy plain: Axl still has his pipes. Often rock singers from the school of high-pitched wailing tend to burn out (see: Robert Plant changing the vocal keys during the recent Led Zeppelin reunion), but, in the studio at least, Axl hasn’t lost a step. His voice sounds as good as the last time he picked up a microphone; he still has his buzz-saw scream, and on certain tracks like “Shackler’s Revenge,” he showcases a balladic depth that we’ve never seen before.

The first half of this album is relentless, almost draining to listen to. It spans many genres, from the vintage metal-tinged arena-rock of “Street of Dreams” to the exotic funk of “If the World.” Track six, “There was a Time,” is a miss, falling short of the operatic grandeur that Axl was clearly aiming for. “Catcher in the Rye” sounds closest to an old-school GN’R track, showing shades of “Cold November Rain.” However, the album loses steam around the halfway point, and the lack of recognizable, memorable riffs becomes conspicuous. “Scraped” is boring and unnecessary, and “Sorry” drags in contrast with the rest of the songs; “Riad N’ the Bedouins,” however, may be the best track on the disk, combining the breakneck pace of “Mr. Brownstone” with a newfound eastern flair. The strongest songs are the ones that stick to what Axl does best; when he tries to explore and experiment with industrial, nu-metal and world-music sounds, the album stumbles.

Although this record doesn’t suck per se, it would be wrong to call it a proper GN’R album. Obviously, the departure of all of the other original members of the band means that their various musical signatures are nowhere to be found. Moreover, there seems to be an army of Axl yes-men rather than a band of any kind. A full three pages of the liner notes is dedicated to credits, and it would be a waste of time to try to list everyone involved. Suffice it to say that Slash, along with the rest of the original members, are entirely irreplaceable, and it shows. Wisely, rather than try to do a Slash impression, the myriad guitarists go the route of Dragonforce, doing their best to make the guitar sound like anything except a guitar. It’s an approach that, like the rest of the album as a whole, is interesting and often very cool, but doesn’t always rock.