Dashboard Confessional — A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar

Like Dashboard Confessional's last release, The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most, Chris Carrabba delivers on this new collection of earnest pop-rock heartbreak tunes. This album is intensely intimate, just like the candid photos of the band in the CD booklet. Carrabba has a gift for off-kilter lyricism. In a way, these songs are all about the same thing: people searching for an escape. "Hands Down" is a song of young high school love; "Ghost Of A Good Thing" is a lament on wasting time on the unattainable, and "Several Ways To Die Trying" is a critique of Hollywood. Diehards will eat up the bonus DVD featuring a recording of an acoustic performance of Carrabba and an audience hell-bent on out-singing him.

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