Much, much better than expected. The main thing here is that despite The Dresden Dolls founding their own sort of punk cabaret rock they don’t rely on it for the songwriting, which is the main problem with most dark cabaret albums. The amount of variety in tempo and rhythm between songs is a fantastically pleasant surprise, yet the album maintains unity through the anchor instrument of the piano and Amanda Palmer‘s consistent vocal styling and bitter attitude. While the individual track strength is lacking (no single song is incredible) these flaws are further mitigated by the creativity and the fact The Dresden Dolls basically have no contemporaries in sound to compete with.