Monday, October 15, 2007

Keep Your Mouth Shut, Keep Your Guard Up - I Swear I'll Make It Right.


With hesitance, I picked the new Dashboard Confessional record up on Friday afternoon. I say I did so with hesitance because I had flashbacks to loyally buying Dusk And Summer a few years ago, expecting maybe a A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar sequel, and being horribly disappointed. However, at the suggestion of Jessica, who had written a short review of it early last week, I caved and bought it. Well that turned out to be the suggestion of the month.

The first thing that struck me about the album is the noticeable "regression" in to the classic Dashboard sound. All the guitars on the record are acoustic, and about half of the songs are just Chris Carrabba and his guitar. The other half of the songs are peppered tastefully with other instruments, but the band never trespasses in to the territory of electric guitars. The songs are raw and organic, and the production compliments the songs exquisitely.

The thing that made Dashboard huge was the fact that Carrabba had a way of penning lyrics that evoked raw emotion in us. The way he phrased his heartache and anguish made us all go "I've never been able to put words to that emotion when I've felt it, but this - THIS is exactly what I feel, this is how I hurt." It was like he was inside our heads - like he had a pulse on every emotion we had. Or was it that, not only could he understand us and speak for us, but he was one of us. He was just like us.

With Dusk And Summer, Carrabba seemed to lose some of that unpolished emotion. The songs were cookie cutter and the words and music just didn't resonate with us like they used to. Had he lost his hold over us? I thought maybe he had. But then I bought The Shade Of Poison Trees.

While the first three records focused mainly on the catastrophe of heartbreak and the loneliness of unrequited adulation, Shade deals with a broader variety of subjects. However, it still manages to lead us to those sing-until-your-lungs-give-out moments we discovered when we heard the first chorus of "Screaming Infidelities." "Thick As Thieves" and "The Widow's Peak" deal with the imperfections and realities of being in a serious, functioning relationship, while "Watch For The Mines" and "Little Bombs" deal with shadiness and lies of a so-called friend. The content is slightly more adult, as if the lyrics are maturing right along with us while the music remains as stirring as it always has.

All this maturity aside, though, Carrabba doesn't completely stray from his old standbys of languishing for the attention of another person ("The Rush") or the simple, inherent desire to be loved ("These Bones") which first gave him a place in our hearts and on our emo playlists.

Forgive my manner of speaking
I know it's quick, but the clock is still ticking
And I've got a few words left burning holes on my tongue
I've been saving them
So lay with me
I could use the company
You could help me ease
These bones

I've owned this record for roughly 60 hours, and I've listened through it close to 25 times. It's the perfect compliment to the other emo record I've been obsessed with for the past week (Jimmy Eat World's Chase This Light, which will be reviewed here soon, obvsly.) It caused me to break the entire Dashboard catalog out (Man, I can't remember the last time I sang along to "The Good Fight") and have myself a circa-2004 emo-thon last night. But that's why we listen to music. It helps us to express things we cannot express solely by ourselves. It allows us to say the things we're meaning to say and get out what we normally couldn't. And good ol' reliable Dashboard Confessional is once again there to take us by the arm and lead the way.

2 comments:

jessica maria said...

LOVE IT !

Question: does the beginning of "Watch Out for the Mines" sound like a quick record skip of the first chords of "Screaming Infidelities" to you? Because it does to me...am I crazy?

FANX FOR B'ING EMO WIFF ME.

everyonelistens said...

YESSSSSS I THOUGHT THE SAME EXACT THING!!!!!