ALBUM REVIEW : SLASH’S SNAKEPIT, “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” (<i> Geffen</i> )**

“Appetite for Deconstruction”? “Use Your Illusion 2 1/2”?

From the evidence of this album, it appears that as much as Axl Rose might have to do with Guns N’ Roses’ vision, Slash is the architect of the band’s sound.

Here are the sweeping octaves, the sexy swagger, the riffing that always seems to have the extra bit of syncopation that originally set GNR apart from its Hollywood rock-club peers. Here too are the pompous arrangements and great, undigested boluses of ‘70s stadium-rock cliche that made the band such a fat target for the light cavalry from Seattle.

This might be better than a lot of the purely Axlian singer-songwriter stuff of latter-day GNR. Unfortunately Slash is often weighed down by a pedestrian rhythm section and a singer who can’t decide whether he wants to sound like Rod Stewart or Perry Farrell.

Still, “Five O’Clock” could be somebody’s dream come true--Guns N’ Roses with half the fat, half the calories.

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good), four stars (excellent).