Here is a short but not sweet review of the CD from The Daily Page.

Sometimes when I’m listening to major-label, Top 40 guitar rock, I imagine a secret checklist requiring completion before the corporate board approves the release. Solid wall of benign guitar chords playing for all three minutes? Check. Everyone in the band hammering the first note of each measure? Check. Kick into an acoustic bridge for 30 seconds before blasting through the chorus one last time? Check. Add a ballad or two, some photos of love-torn young men walking the beach at sunset, and poof — welcome to the new Dashboard Confessional album. Throw it on the ash heap of forgettable 2006 recordings, alongside Teddy Geiger and Nick Lachey.

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The new single is Stolen. The confirmation is an ad provided by ABC. I saw it at www.TVSquad.com where they have TWO prominent DC ads to the right of the content.

Here is the Flash ad:

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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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Continue reading New Tone For Dashboard Confessional »

Pittsburgh Tribune has an interview with Chris about him staying true to his music.

The genius of Dashboard Confessional always has been singer-guitarist-mastermind Chris Carrabba’s ability to make it seem like he’s singing to each and every kid crowding the stage, the die-hard fans who hang on every lyric and sing them back at Carrabba with equal intensity and volume.

Now, with the release of the CD “Dusk and Summer,” he’s reaching beyond the front rows to kids in the last rows of auditoriums who can’t see the details on his tattooed arms but know that he sings from the heart.

“I think that’s the result,” says Carrabba, who performs Saturday with Dashboard Confessional at the Chevrolet Amphitheatre, Station Square. “But it’s not necessarily (the intent). I wish I was as good at being as calculating as that. I’d probably have more success.”

Actually, Carrabba has met with more than a small measure of success. With Dashboard — as Dashboard, actually — he’s progressed from playing small clubs to outdoor amphitheaters. Instead of a few hundred fans, there are a few thousand. And he’s done it without sacrificing his core principles, even if the music now is louder and more fully orchestrated. Following “A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar,” the new release is another step away from his acoustic roots. The core of the music, however, remains the same: Carrabba’s self-examinations yield songs that inspire via their emotional content. How it happens is a mystery.

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VH1 has an interview regarding songwriting inspirations and how he has become what he is today (songwriting, of course).

VH1: Who has made you feel that way recently?

Carrabba: The Hold Steady. I don’t think that there’s anybody that weaves a story quite as well as [Hold Steady songwriter] Craig Finn does. There are people out there that I think are on the same sort of timeline as I am, like Conor Oberst [a.k.a. Bright Eyes]. I think he’s a master of language in a way that I am not. He’s clearly an educated poet, and I’m not educated in that. I’m feeling my way through it probably like most writers. I listen to a guy like Conor, and I think, “Well, that’s really good and it’s really beautiful music, but I won’t feel envious; I’ll feel inspired, entertained and intrigued.” But when I hear the Hold Steady, I realize there’s a guy that does the same thing that Bob Dylan did to me. It’s almost like a blue-collar poet, like a throwback to the Beat Generation, and he’s astounding. And then there are people that inspire me that keep inspiring me. Like, I’ll never stop listening to Superchunk. There are a lot of bands that I started listening to as passionately as when I started listening to Superchunk, but for some reason, this one doesn’t fade. I listen to every single record that [Superchunk frontman] Mac [McCaughan] makes and inflate it with optimism. I don’t know why. Maybe I believe that his musical creation could change the world — ’cause it changed mine. It’s amazing that kind of thing can happen. It sounds so lofty, but on a singular level, it changed my world — and not as a player, but as a person.

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