Dope includes: Edsel Dope (vocals, guitar, bass, programming); Acey Slade, Virus (guitar, background vocals); Simon Dope (keyboards, percussion, samples); Sloane "Mosey" Jentry (bass); Sketchy Shay (drums).
Additional personnel: DJ Lethal.
Engineers include: Anthony "Fu" Valcic, Josh Abraham, Edsel Dope.
Principally recorded at Pulse Studios, Los Angeles, California.
For their sophomore bow, aggro-rockers Dope still have plenty of axes to grind. Having already denounced police brutality and an unfair American drug policy on their debut FELONS AND REVOLUTIONARIES, Edsel Dope and company take a more introspective turn this time out while using grooves to gild the crypto-industrial energy that's at the core of Dope's sound. Self-empowerment lies at the heart of LIFE and can be heard in the hypocrite-hating "Die MF Die," anthemic single "Now Or Never," and defiant "Take Your Best Shot".
The band's vitriol does get reigned in enough at times to allow for surprises like Edsel singing rather than spitting out the lyrics on the melodic "With Or Without You" and the equally engaging "Crazy". These reprieves are only temporary as the band's inherent intensity seems within the realms of a quasi-optimistic rant like "March Of Hope," which finds the singer vowing to "Spit into the face of your authority". Surly teens everywhere are sure to rejoice upon hearing this anarchy-fueled Molotov cocktail of musical mayhem.
