It had been five years since Appetite for Destruction, so when Use Your Illusion I and II — separate albums released simultaneously — dropped, they exploded. Slash and Izzy Stradlin let fly a brutal twin-guitar assault, taking all "the trash ... dumped into the brain" and firing it back with machine-gun fury. A soaring version of Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" is their can't-we-all-just-get-along plea. Guns n' Roses couldn't — even with themselves. But these albums stand on their own incendiary terms, souvenirs of a season in hell.

• Rolling Stone's Original 1991 Review of 'Use Your Illusion I'

• Rolling Stone's Original 1991 Review of 'Use Your Illusion II'

• Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Artists of All Time: Guns n' Roses