Dashboard Confessional has made several good albums all based around a similar concept. That concept being, guy likes girl -> girl likes guy -> girl eventually breaks guy’s heart.
Seems simple enough right? This formula has served Dashboard Confessional (aka singer/songwriter Chris Carrabba) through 3 albums, several EPs, and one live album. The difference between those albums and EPs is that they acheive their goal while being more original than most popular music out today and coherant yet different. “Dusk and Summer” is neither of these things.
When I listen to an album especially one from an artist that I have a tendency to like, the first time I listen to it, it will generally be background music and I let my brain soak it all in subconsisously listening for anything that peaks my interest. Once that is done, I listen to it again later and focus listening for more of what caught my ear the first time. With Dashboard Confessional, their last album “A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar”, what I think is their best album to date, did this quite well. Chris was coming up with some of his best and most interesting lyrics. He was carefully wordsmithing his hits with great care, paying attention not to fall into boring repeatative lyric traps. However, he looses that maticulous planning on “Dusk & Summer” and instead falls into the mundane of songwriting by writing simple verse-chorus-verse songs that have nothing interesting going on.
This album comes off as responsive, in that every song seems to a response to something rather than songs that are pro-active in nature (think “Hey Girl” from “A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar”).
In summary, there is nothing new to see here, move along.
(Click Album Art to Purchase)
Michael Koby 