D-A-D – Scare Yourself

Denmark’s own heroes of Rock ‘n’ Roll, D-A-D (formerly known as Disneyland After Dark, before a certain lawsuit), are back with their 10th album since their debut in 1986.

Peaking with the excellent albums No Fuel Left For The Pilgrims and Riskin’ It All in ’89 and ’91, they are still keeping the formula alive, and they have just headlined the Roskilde Festival in Denmark with Black Sabbath beneath them on the bill(!)

Metal Express Radio caught up with them last year at the Sweden Rock Festival, and even back in June 2003 they had been in the studio making what would eventually be Scare Yourself for quite a while. Now, one year later, the finished product has finally surfaced.

The first single and title track of the new album, “Scare Yourself,” is, however, a song that stretches the formula a bit — and the chorus is, believe it or not, right up the Marilyn Manson alley. Not too worry, there are plenty of D-A-D-riffs to go along.

The Danes are still good at choruses, and boy does Scare Yourself offer a few. “A Good Day (To Give It Up)” is one example, “No Hero” and “Camping In Scandinavia” are two others. Produced by D-A-D themselves, the album is raw, energetic, and down to the bone.

D-A-D did fairly well in the 90s, but their two prior albums, Everything Glows and Soft Dogs, from 2000 and 2002, respectively, didn’t impress that much, compared to the rest of their catalogue. Scare Yourself, however, brings back the classic qualities of D-A-D to a certain degree. It offers plenty of great hooks, choruses, guitar riffs, and enough variation to hit at a wide level, from the screaming chorus of “Scare Yourself” to the more mellow “Little Addict” and “Hey Now.”