For nearly a decade, Dashboard Confessional frontman Chris Carrabba has managed to keep his emo lyrics and singing interesting and relatively fresh. Dashboard's new album, "Alter the Ending," finds Carrabba's old emo style, packed with his signature whiny tone and occasional screaming, alive and well. While the vocals may not be soft on the ears, Carrabba's voice is emotional and raw.
Still, there is something missing — and that is consistency. Although Dashboard cooks up a few gems using its old ingredients, the band also tries a new recipe on some other tracks, and those are where things get off track.
The harmonies on every track are incredible. But while the instrumentals also stay consistent with the punk-emo style from Dashboard's previous albums, the sound of "Alter the Ending" is very different. It's more produced, upbeat and, in some respects, heavier, with a stronger punk sound. But ultimately, "Alter the Ending," like every other Dashboard album, is geared toward a particular emo-loving audience.
The best songs on this album closely mimic the style of the group's freshman album, "The Swiss Army Romance" (2000). For example, "No News is Bad News" begins as a simple song accompanied by an acoustic guitar, resembling much of Carrabba's work in the past. But partway through the track, an electric piano and a distorted lead guitar line begin to build something new. Dashboard has been using this technique more and more frequently with each successive album.
"No News is Bad News" is one of the more fun songs of the album, starting off soft and then gradually gaining energy. But the track also plays to the band's base, with some of Carrabba's most whiny singing — exactly what Dashboard fans want to hear.
Interestingly, the title track off this album, "Alter the Ending," is the one that strays most from Dashboard's roots. The song is essentially Dashboard's response to the pop-punk group Fall Out Boy. This might not sound like the recipe for a standout track, but "Alter the Ending" is actually a fun pump-up anthem full of high energy and intensity that carries through the entire song. "I Know About You" is another song that strays more toward Fall Out Boy's punk sound, although it doesn't go as far in this direction, and doesn't succeed as much as "Alter the Ending."
"Alter the Ending" and "I Know About You" work well as alternatives to hardcore punk rock music, but Dashboard fans might be dissatisfied with these tracks, as they enter an entirely different genre than that to which Carrabba is accustomed.
One of the slowest and least appealing songs on the album is "Hell on the Throat." It starts slowly and stays at that same low level. The track simply lacks momentum, with various parts added and taken away throughout the song. After hearing the first minute, listeners can surmise exactly where the song is going.
On the other hand, the album's iTunes bonus track, "Truth of the Matter," is an interesting composition right from the beginning. The song sounds overly produced, but several key components make it enjoyable — mainly Dashboard's typical acoustic guitar and some of the most compelling drum work on the album. From the moment the drums pick up, listeners can feel them driving the song forward and pushing toward a climax in exactly the way that "Hell on the Throat" did not. The juxtaposition of these two songs is perhaps the best indicator of the hit-or-miss nature of this album.
"Alter the Ending" is a decent album at best. Like most albums, it has a few good songs and a few that are less than stellar. What's so disappointing about this album is the extent to which Carrabba strays from the very style that has gotten Dashboard to where it is today.
Most promising are the few songs that echo or directly reference the catchy, melodic and emo songs of Dashboard's past. The mix of past and present on this album sometimes makes it feel like two distinct records from two very different bands: a Fall Out Boy cover band and the real Dashboard Confessional. Though it does so infrequently, when the real Dashboard comes through it's a fantastic listening experience.
