Here’s an article from The Ann Arbor News about the music of Dashboard Confessional… slightly interesting read.

The operative word in Dashboard Confessional’s name is confessional.

Chris Carrabba, who essentially is the emo-rock outfit, which sports an ever-changing lineup, hit it big thanks to his emotionally bare, hyper-sensitive songs of love and its impact on the 20-something soul.

Songs like 2001’s “Screaming Infidelities'’ reinvented emo rock as a mostly acoustic enterprise, showcasing Carrabba’s angsty punk in an acoustic setting that owed as much to Cat Stevens as it did to Kurt Cobain.

After a string of equally sparse records, including 2001’s “Places You Have Come to Fear the Most,'’ 2002’s chart-topping “MTV Unplugged'’ and 2003’s “A Mark, a Mission, a Brand, a Scar,'’ Carrabba - who performs Friday at the Michigan Theater during a brief warm-up tour before a fall stadium swing - has just released what might be his pop masterpiece.

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“Dusk and Summer'’ re-imagines the tattooed, would-be punk singer-songwriter as a studio act, trading his previous, acoustic guitar-based arrangements for lush arrangements, tight harmonies and moody sonic landscapes.

“I envisioned it having a sonic grandeur,'’ Carrabba told the Associated Press. “I wanted it to envelop me as if I were the listener.

“I wanted the music to be welcoming and carrying me where the songs intended to take you.'’

Co-produced by Daniel Lanois and Don Gilmore, whose work with U2 and Pearl Jam respectively led to some of those artists’ most fully realized recent efforts, the album marks a stark departure for Carrabba.

However, while he worked for the better part of three years both writing and recording “Dusk and Summer,'’ he insisted that slick production and studio atmosphere never infringe on his songs.

“I wanted you to be lifted up simply by the music without it being bloated,'’ he said. “It was all about finding the simplest but most powerful ways to convey the moment in the song at all times.'’

The album even features a duet with singer Adam Duritz, himself a veteran of genre-crossing hit making in the early 1990s with his band, Counting Crows.

For all of its “sonic grandeur,'’ fans of Dashboard’s confessional songs needn’t worry. “Dusk and Summer'’ finds Carrabba just as sensitive, tender and soul-searching as ever. The sentiments are just wrapped up on pretty string arrangements and atmospheric synthesizer sweeps.

“You make this music to fill up some hole inside of you,'’ he said. “All those people cheering for you don’t fill up that hole.

“Because with or without it I’m still looking to feel that high you get from creating that music.'’

Carrabba comes by his punk credentials honestly, having fronted several hardcore bands around his childhood home in Florida during the early 1990s. But even as he was thrashing away onstage, those paying careful attention would have noticed an uncommon level of sentimentality in his songs.

When a friend urged him to record some of those tunes in an acoustic setting, Dashboard Confessional was born and emo-rock hasn’t been the same since.

After all, here’s a singer-songwriter - polite and earnest, with model good looks, perfect hair and full-sleeve tattoos - singing punk love songs on an acoustic guitar.

But Carrabba said too much is made of his appearance, while, too often, the music is overlooked.

“I think music and art is all about intangibles,'’ he said.