Guns N’ Roses’ new song Hard Skool has leaked online after being released early in international territories. It is set for official release tomorrow, but fans are discussing the leak on the Guns N’ Roses Reddit page.
The song was previously written and recorded in the early 2000’s during the Chinese Democracy sessions, but Slash and Duff McKagan have rearranged the song to make it sound like a natural followup to the Use Your Illusion albums, with a signature musical breakdown near the end of the song.
It sounds far more like Guns N’ Roses than Absurd, which sounded like a patched together demo from 1999 with some Slash guitar riffs and overproduced industrial era Axl Rose vocals. “Hard Skool” is more tailor made for a 2021 reworking and fits Slash’s style, though it does make GNR fans hungry to hear an actual new song that wasn’t written by Axl Rose and his rotating lineup 20 years ago.
One fan pointed out on Reddit, “I don’t even care too much about the fact the vocals were recorded over a third of Axl’s current lifespan ago, Slash and Duff’s additions to this song make what was already a great demo kick even more ass as a finished song.
By the standard of the band’s discography, this song doesn’t stick out too much, which is a pretty good thing in my opinion. It’s good to have a fairly lean, straightforward rock song instead of something more Chinese Democracy-esque.”
