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Cross Blogination 5: Dashboard Confessional – The Places That You’ve Come To Fear The Most

Cross Blogination is a project I’m doing with twitterthon hero Diary Of A Ledger, the idea being every week one of us will recommend to the other one of our all time favourite albums, which we will then both write a review for.  This week it’s Gray's turn again.

I approached this week's challenge with a certain amount of trepidation. I've never been familiar with the work of Dashboard Confessional, except to know one thing: They are properly emo.  And not in an old-school Far/Quicksand kind of way. No, these guys are the sort of band that leads tweenie girls in bad mascara to leave videos of themselves crying on YouTube, the sort of band whose boyishly good-looking lead singer will instantly break the hearts and melt the panties of any girl who sees their photo.

In other words, I hated them on sight and never looked any further.  So I cringed a little when Gray suggested this, and immediately started plotting a revenge scenario which would involve strapping him into a chair and blasting him with non stop Pig Destroyer and Agoraphobic Nosebleed to the point where he'd be begging for another 48 hours on twitter.  But the point of this is to remain objective, and so I gritted my teeth and added it to my collection of proper music.

I started listening to this on the bus on the way to work a few days back.  It was morning and I hadn't woken up yet, so I expected to be knocked about by a lot of bleating lyrics and discordant guitars.  But opener 'Brilliant Dance' starts with a perfectly pleasant acoustic little ditty. The vocals are a little overwrought and nasal, but nowhere near as bad as I had feared. Pressing play I had had images of me wresting the steering wheel away from the bus driver and forcing the bus into a building just to avoid listening any more.

Come the next track and the tirrade of screeching emo still fails to appear, as the acoustic vibe continues, 'Good Fight' being another emo pop acoustic ballad, replete with a nice backing from quiet drums and underlying piano.  The album continues in this way, and when I look it up later it seems that Dashboard started off as a side project for singer Chris Carrabba.

It's this acoustic approach that saves this album from becoming yet another emo-pop stereotype.  The songs are all well crafted, the lyrics a little hackneyed but nowehere near as bad as the likes of Gerard Way.  The simple production allows the songwriting to shine, and Carrabba clearly has a way with a chorus.  His voice does grate after a few tracks, but that's as much to do with the over-exposure of his vocal style by bands that followed as it is to do with his performance.

'Screaming Infidelities' with its rather hideous line 'But as for me, I wish that I was anywhere with anyone making out.' is a bit awful, but 'Again I Go Unnoticed' is a cracking little tune. And so the pattern goes for the rest of the album. Some songs are excellent little pop songs (the title track, 'Saints and Sailors'),  some are bland and boring ('This Ruined Puzzle').

Despite how much I was fearing listening to this though, it's nowhere near as bad as all that. It's a perfectly pleasant little album that leaves you feeling a little bit like a character in the OC.  Sun washed and well crafted, the best thing I can say about it is that it is utterly unlikely to drive you to a murderous rage and force your carriage of transport to become a flaming box of death. Which is more than I can say for Fall Out Boy.

3/5

Now, if you are offended by this review, head over to Gray's place and hear him talk about it in a more positive light.  Unless you are Gray, in which case, sorry mate!