Review Summary: Overall, a much happier Chris Carrabba with, for the first time, a real full band feel to it. Lyrics that are emotional, but overall not that sad. Music that is rich and deep.
If you are familiar with Dashboard Confessional's past works, you might be quite surprised by their fourth album
Dusk and Summer. The album is a lot more "full" than past albums by Dashboard Confessional. Chris Carrabba is trying to incorporate a full band effort here instead of an acoustic CD of Chris Carrabba featuring "some other guys." The music is more rich, tight, and drawn together, leaving you a feeling that Dashboard is now a full band instead of one man. Past albums have been extremely emotional, powerful lyrics about heartache and heartbreak on top of some fairly intricate acoustic guitar. Chris Carrabba's monumental effort
The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most, full of acoustic "break your heart and make you cry" songs, is loved by thousands. Mainly by the heartbroken teenager that feels that special connection to Carrabba's lyrics. But does this whole band thing really work or should Chris Carrabba have stuck with a continuation of his older material? As one may recall, the full band thing didn't work when Carrabba was with a band called Further Seems Forever. This album is undoubtedly a step up from their previous effort
A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar. However, this album may just leave you feeling unsatisfied, that is, if you were expecting another
The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most.
The album opens with the first released single "Don't Wait." A fairly appropriate single. It is somewhat similar to Carrabba's older lyrics, emotional and at first a sad FEEL to them, but shows you the different edge that Dashboard Confessional has to offer with the full band atmosphere. Overall, It has a rather happier impression to it. It's about getting to know a girl and kinda putting that "armor" up as you're getting to know her better. Carrabba sings "don't wait to lay your armor down" in order for him to get to know who she is. It is also in this song that you get a sense of how the lyrics have changed from the past albums, not nearly as heartbreaking.
"Stolen" is one of my favorites on this album and may just be the second single of the album. It's powerful and beautiful. Some may pass this off as a rather sad song, as it is a bit slower. However, if you listen to the lyrics, it's actually rather happy. It's talking about a memorable summer spent with a loved one that by the end, Carrabba realizes how it stole his heart. "So long, so long" is a piano based song played by Carrabba and features vocals from The Counting Crow's Adam Duritz. A VERY pretty song that is undoubtedly sad. Duritz adds a very nice touch to this song about Chris leaving his hometown.
Track eight, "Slow Decay" is much different lyrically than Carrabba has ever done. It's about a soldier coming home from war. It has some cool bass on it and is pretty different from the usual lyrics of lost love, but so is the rest of the album. The title track, "Dusk and Summer," is most like Carrabba's past acoustic songs. A classic Dashboard Confessional song. A sad/happy song that Carrabba sings extremely well in. Sad because it's about a summer relationship that ended too soon, but the memories are really good. The closing song "Heaven Here" has a repeating drum beat that has a weird effect to it. They close the album on a very interesting note here, it's definitely a happy song with some really different music that dashboard has never done before.
Overall, Dashboard Confessional has a whole different sound in
Dusk and Summer. It's nothing new, however, it leaves you with this strange feeling. Like one of those moods where you can't decide if your in a good mood, or you're sad. I think Chris Carrabba felt as though in order to expand the fan base he needed to make some happier songs. Well, he did just that, and i was excited when i heard this new "happier" feel after listening to a couple of songs before the album came out. However, upon hearing the entire album , i just don't think he should have made a happier album. one or two happy songs would have been fine, but Carrabba is known as the king of sad. The songs work better when he constructs an acoustically based song with sad, powerful lyrics. Don't get me wrong, this album is by far more musically talented than anything Dashboard Confessional has done to date, but it's just too uneventful and forgettable. Only a few tracks stick out. The main thing is
Dusk and Summer doesn't have that emotion and power to it that Chris Carrabba is oh so good at.
It's kinda hard to pin down any specific people that will really like this album. If you are a fan of Dashboard, this album might disappointed you somewhat by the happier edge to it. This album just doesn't have that raw emotion that makes you want to sing with Carrabba at the top of your lungs. If you hated Dashboard before this album because of the sad, acoustic, and musically empty songs, then you just might like this album.
