Reviews
 What Happened?
The Lone Sharks
Nine Lives
Steve Winwood
Moneyland
Various Artists
I'm Not There (Original Soundtrack)
Various Artists
Home Before Dark
Neil Diamond
Toby Keith's 35 BIGGEST Hits
Toby Keith
It's A Shame About Ray (Collector's Edition)
The Lemonheads
About a Son
Otis Blue (Collector's Edition)
Otis Redding
Loaded
Wood Brothers
|
Don’t be fooled by a name. With all due respect to the additional musicians who contributed to this disk, Dashboard Confessional is hardly a band. Chris Carrabba stands (or sits, on a stool) center stage, sings everything, plays guitar, and writes and arranges all of the music, so it is essentially a one man show. The guy appears to have talent, and legions of devoted fans seem dedicated to letting him know this. Carrabba would be a pretty good songwriter, too, but he desperately needs a few new topics to sing about. If you’re twenty-five or under, and have a really, really bad broken heart, then you probably will not agree with me on this, but everyone else should take heed. This guy is stuck in a rut that I doubt he will ever be able to dig himself out of. You don’t need to be a $100 an hour analyst to recognize this, either. After a full CD of high-tempered whining, Carrabba’s broken heart grows extremely tiresome to all except the faithfully depressed.
Chris Carrabba is the emo Dan Hill (remember "Sometimes When We Touch"? Yeah, him.). His songs are powerful, pretty, melodic, quasi-literate, and ultimately, banal. Every single track on Places You Have Come to Fear the Most is an expression of Carrabba’s pain. Ultimately, listening to this entire disk leaves the impression that this guy has nothing else to sing about except his own hurt feelings; if he didn’t have a broken heart, he’d have nothing left to say. In this sense (and he’s probably going to hate this comparison even more than my Dan Hill dig), Carrabba’s album reminds me of the first Melissa Etheridge album, where every song was about a screwed up relationship. He’d be lucky if he was like her, though, because at least she was eventually able to stretch out a bit. Carrabba doesn’t yet show this much promise.
With all of this whining, and so much yowling about his broken heart, Carrabba never once uses the word ‘love’ to describe his own state of mind. So, if he’s not at all committal, what does he have to complain about? Not to overanalyze, but this is music for people who are in love with the pain caused by self-pity. On "The Best Deceptions", he sings, "I’d rather say nothing. I’d rather you never heard my voice." Agreed. Instead, maybe I’ll ask him to listen to some unsolicited advice from me. Chris, find somebody nice. Fall in love. Get happy. Then, get a day job. Oh, and P.S. – After singing that title track, you might want to see a throat doctor, too.
Grade: 
 
|
More Music Reviews
More Movie Reviews
More Book Reviews
More Concert Reviews
Powered by Millennium Communications Inc.