Dunno if anyone will care or not, but contrary to various postings online that reference the newly leaked material, these 9 tracks are most definitely NOT mastered. That however has since been taken care of by yours truly. Of course the source material is nowhere near what I'd use for a normal mastering job, but the nasty, budget quality mp3 sound is a lot more tolerable now, all the songs are the same volume (and to modern volume specs) and the huge silences between tracks has been removed, thus creating a much better song to song flow.

Here's a link for those who haven't already been listening to the tracks in this much cleaned up way:

Heart Of Metal message board thread

File source history:

Antiquiet original mp3 files...Converted to WAV...Mastered...Converted to 320 kbps high quality joint stereo mp3.

I included a 500 x 500 pixel jpeg cover (bicycle cover) for iPod use.

Total file size: 105 MB

...and anyone who thinks that these mastered from far below cd source versions of songs from the hopefully someday to be released Axl & Co record will keep anyone who gives a crap from actually buying it if it ever does get released is a bloomin' idiot.

Regarding the actual music at hand...I gotta say that Axl has somehow managed to make material that sounds like several things all once:

1. The natural followup to Use Your Illusion I & II
2. An Axl Rose solo album
3. Guns N' Roses
4. Not Guns N' Roses

I dunno how he did that, but he did...and the songwriting is truly stellar...gotta give it up to him, because it's an undeniable fact. And the more you listen to the songs the more you realize just how stellar the writing truly is.

Anyway...Enjoy the mastered versions of these tracks...you won't hear 'em sounding better until (or unless) they get officially released.

J