Dashboard Confessional

The Places You've Come To Fear (2001)

I just came from the record store in the mall where I noticed that their stock of this particular cd was nearly depleted; and I thought to myself, "That's great.", because this is a great album that fully deserves to be successful.

Dashboard Confessional is Chris Carraba, and his acoustic guitar. A few tracks on this album add bass and drums in, but the majority of the material is just Chris and his guitar. His second album in six months (and Vagrant records debut), "The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most" is an album full of raw emotion captured in his lyrics and songs. Prior to Dashboard Confessional, Chris served as the lead singer for hardcore band Further Seems Forever (on Tooth and Nail), and currently is the much tattooed administrator of an elementary school. Interesting.

He has been compared to the likes of Johnny Cash, and Jawbreaker - I'll add another name to the list and compare him to Bob Dylan. Though he lacks the displeasingly nasal Dylan voice, DBC's acoustic songwriting can be likened to that of Dylan: The elaborate storytelling, pouring his heart out to the listener, and bare bones acoustic accompaniment are all Dylan-esque. Only better.

Every track on this cd is great but my favorites are "The Brilliant Dance" and "This Ruined Puzzle". Both these songs are great and I never tire of them as I've listened to the daily for over a week. Though, admittedly, the acoustic style did take me a while to get used to, once you get over it this disc gets better and better with each listen. It's an amazing powerful cd, full of raw emotion and great songwriting: rare in todays age of boy bands and fake punkers. It has hardly left my cd player in the last week and a half. Go buy it, there's only a few copies left….