Long before he was in Guns N’ Roses, Axl Rose co-wrote a song called “Shadow Of Your Love” with his childhood friend Paul Tobias. Hollywood Rose, the band that Rose and Izzy Stradlin had before Guns N’ Roses, recorded a version of “Shadow Of Your Love,” but it didn’t come out until years later. Steven Adler has said that “Shadow Of Your Love” is the first song that GN’R ever rehearsed. They used it to audition for producer Rob Clink. But the band never put “Shadow Of Your Love” on any of their albums. Over the years, the band released “Shadow Of Your Love” as a B-side a couple of times — first on the “It’s So Easy” 12″, then on the B-side of the band’s version of “Live And Let Die.” Both times, it had fake crowd noise added in, for some reason.
Yesterday, GN’R announced a massive, absurdly extensive box-set reissue of Appetite For Destruction, their beyond-classic 1987 debut. The reissue will include a whole lot of bonus material, including rarities and previously unreleased songs. It won’t be cheap; they’re selling the Locked N’ Loaded version of the set for $999. But if there’s a lot of material like “Shadow Of Your Love” in the vaults, you can see why GN’R fans of means might consider shelling out for it.
Because holy shit, “Shadow Of Your Love” rips. The band is using a remastered, no-crowd-noise version of the song to serve as the single from the box set, and it’s a total blitzkrieg, fast and nasty and powerful. It shows just how much punk rock was in the band’s early DNA, and it shows a group of musicians truly locked-in and Axl Rose’s out-of-control howl in peak form. It sounds dangerous. Listen below.
The deluxe Appetite For Destruction reissue is out 6/29 on Universal Music Group.
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