Emerging out from the crooked shadows, Dashboard Confessional ‘sighs deeply’ the epitome of Emo, present lush and lovingly crafted music for our delicate constitutions, this is just the ticket for our haggard bodies. We enter 2022, crawling out of a pandemic and heading straight into war, yet still facing our own daily desperation and despondencies. Eleven of the very best, instinctively accurate and cohesive songs that are heavy in their content and gentle in their execution.
What weighs us down is laid bare here, in simple words so the understanding and absorption is easier, it is a time to decide what is important, but to do that effectively we need to jettison all that is not. That feeling of being dragged down and then asserting our independence is portrayed here from the get-go.
Songs about teenage love, angst, aching hearts, falling apart, and happy ever afters collide with adulthood trauma, aging and responsibilities, chained to the kitchen sink as you daydream about all that could have been. Rewind back to 2020 and singer Chris Carrabba was involved in a serious motorcycle accident, the song ‘Here’s To Moving On’ gives us that insight to bounce back from whatever has halted our progression.
‘The Better Of Me’ is a corker, it contains the line ‘I was something, I swear it before life got the better of me’ you feel the voice within you, you want to scream it out loud, but you worry no one will hear you or that they won’t recognise its significance. Only if were true that we could be ‘Pain Free In Three Chords’ all our troubles would have gone by now. However, three chords are enough to assimilate and reaffirm our stance, providing a much needed energy and kinesis to avoid stagnation. The easy to follow narrative of ‘Sleep In’ is unique and has a joyful twist, an exquisite little tune, which lives in a landscape that is stripped back, acoustic, and therefore has nowhere to hide its foibles. Maybe that is where the magic is. There is no fear, it is exactly what the band name refers to, a confessional, a cleansing, and a rebirth, hoping for a better time ahead.
This record brings a sophisticated sadness, a reality check, an openness without which we cannot attempt any sort of rebuilding and rejuvenation. Here’s to living and thriving, not vegetating and surviving, let’s face it no-one’s pain free.
Azra Pathan
Dashboard Confessional – All The Truth That I can Tell out now via Hidden Notes Records/ AWAL.