Axl Rose may have frozen Guns N’Roses in semi-limbo for a decade, but the rise of post-Guns supergroup Velvet Revolver has renewed interest in LA’s last great self-styled hard-rocking outlaws. Billed as an album of buried treasure from the band’s earliest incarnation, The Roots Of…actually features just five tracks of sub-Iron Maiden punker metal, each of which is then remixed twice by ex-Gunner Gilby Clarke and Cinderella drummer Fred Coury. Wherever you stand on Axl’s songwriting skills, nobody besides autistic completists needs to own even one version of these generic pre-Slash slammers, never mind three.
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