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Guns N’ Roses Release First New Song in 13 Years

Axl Rose (L) and Slash of the band "Guns N´ Roses" perform during the Vive Latino 2020 festival at the Foro Sol in Mexico City, on March 14, 2020. - The festival is carried out with extreme health measures to avoid the spread of the coronavirus, COVID-19. (Photo by Alejandro MELENDEZ / AFP) (Photo by ALEJANDRO MELENDEZ/AFP via Getty Images)

Ever since Guns N’ Roses reenlisted Slash and Duff McKagan officially in 2016, the band has been touring on nostalgia and good memories. After talking about it for what feels like forever, it seems like there’s finally some new music on the way.

After performing the song at the band’s show at Boston’s Fenway Park, GNR has officially unveiled “Absurd,” which (as sharp listeners have pointed out) is similar to a song called “Silkworms” that was part of the now-mythical Chinese Democracy sessions (and was a lot more electronic sounding back then as well).

“But this is really kind of absurd for us to try this. Wasn’t that funny? And they don’t even know the joke yet. Ok, this is called ‘Absurd,’” Rose quipped at the show. The group teased its existence on social media earlier in the day but didn’t make any notice of its actual release.

As you can hear below, the song mixes some of that energy from those Chinese Democracy sessions along with the fiery material that marked the band’s raucous early years.

 

 

Whether this means a new album is on the way remains to be seen. But Guns N’ Roses releasing new material out of thin air, well, at least it only took 13 years between new material instead of the 17 between the Use Your Illusion albums (1993’s The Spaghetti Incident? doesn’t count).

Guns N’ Roses is currently touring stadiums with Mammoth WVH (aka Wolfgang Van Halen) opening.