When it comes to discerning the quality of this album, it is going to really depend on what you want from the veteran Danish project. Do you need them to be industrial or just dark electronic music? The lines here begin to get blurry. Aggression is what separates industrial music from electronic music, along with more organic qualities like guitars. Many industrial projects have beefy enough synths to make guitars not mandatory. This album starts with a more cold-wave feel and gradually finds more aggressive elements beginning to add up. Four songs in an it's split about fifty-fifty between the two genres. Sometimes it works better than others. The title track needs more dynamics as it drones off on its chanted groove.
There is a more aggressive industrial flavor to the song "Hate DNA" which the topic it's hard for it to not take on this sonic shade. The formula for this album seems to fluctuate between the two modes of dark electronics, for a more cold wave dance to the pounding chants of industrial. " I Don't Know You" does not find the vocals as inspired as some of the album's earlier performances. "Can I Fake It" seems like it wants to be "Head Like a Hole" The vocal hooks are however not to that level. "Negative Space" finds the grooves improving. There is more of an industrial stomp to "Epitaph Sidelines".
"If You Dare' moves with the kind of kicks similar to those already displayed on the dance floor this album lays out. They kept the momentum with "Bite My Tongue". "Do You Believe" works off themes we have heard before on this album already. "I'm Accused' works off a more future pop vibe, before things get darker and angrier for what we are calling the last song, rather than using the remixes as the basis to judge this album by. I will give this incarnation of the album an 8, making it better than most.
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