The letter was bullshit. As Axl said "It takes approximately 8 weeks for an album to hit the shelves once it has been turned in to the record company".

So, if they were still recording and mixing in February, it would have been impossible to release the album on March 6th. Actually, the album should have been turned in to the record company before those cancelled shows if they really wanted to release it on March 6th....

That's laughable.

Axl had 25 %, Slash, Izzy and Duff 20 %, Steven 15 %.

Oh really ?

When I agreed to do our recent North American tour, I did it with the understanding that my manager, Merck Mercuriadis, and I were in full agreement regarding our strategy and touring plans and, most important, that any and all things needed to release the album by Dec. 26 at the latest were in place. Unfortunately, it turned out that this was not the case, and I regret to say that the album will not be released by the end of the year. Although many things went extremely well and were very exciting, there were, in our opinion, unnecessary and avoidable complications on our tour having to do with the tour routing, scheduling and album and video plans that wreaked havoc on all involved. This was compounded by an overall sense of a lack of respect by management for the band and crew and each individual's particular expertise that has resulted, unfortunately, in the end of both Guns' and my managerial involvement with Merck Mercuriadis.

In regard to a release date for the album itself, certain minor - and I do mean minor -- additions, as well as contract negotiations, need to be completed. Barring any unforeseen complications, these things have now been adequately scheduled. The band and I, along with our record company, feel that this record deserves the proper setup and promotion, not the '13 Tuesdays left' and 'It may just appear in your record store' approach offered by management. We believe this strategy may have been used as a tool by management to sell this latest tour to the various promoters, and if this was the case, this was obviously unfair to them. The stress of dealing with this situation has been considerable for everyone, including the band, but more important, in our opinion, it was something utterly insane to do to our fans.

As someone else said, the "indus" songs as OMG or Silkworms was Axl going through a personal phase at the time. I think he got away from that and is trying to do something more classic rock feel to it. Hence the collaboration with Bach.
Something along the lines of Zep/Queen. The indus/vanguard days are over.