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You don't want to hear the story. You already know the story: earnest young guy sings in some punk bands, gets his heart broken, writes some acoustic songs about it, tours with a stool, the kids start singing. Yadda yadda. The thing is, it's all true. But you don't need me to rehash it all for you. Why? Because Dashboard Confessional is so much more than that now.
Still, let's recap, if only a little: it's been three years since Chris Carrabba first decided to record some of his private songs and released them as the spartan The Swiss Army Romance (the record was recently reissued on Carrabba's own Anodyne Records imprint). It's been over two years since the release of the second Dashboard Confessional album, and the first for Vagrant, the brutal, masterful (and recently Gold certified) The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most. As Carrabba toured that record, first solo, then with some friends, and eventually as the dedicated quartet that comprises Dashboard Confessional today, a funny thing happened. The diehards who had packed his earliest shows - when he was just a stage-fright wracked kid alone onstage with an acoustic guitar, improbably sandwiched between hardcore bands - had spread the word about his songs like secrets, and the number of fans doubled, then tripled, and still everyone of them knew all the words to all of the songs by heart. MTV picked up on what was happening and started playing the video for "Screaming Infidelities," then made Dashboard the first non-platinum act to get its own episode of Unplugged (fittingly, the DVD release of the special was later certified Platinum). A summer tour with Weezer followed. Then an MTV Video Music Award - the one, of course, that was voted on by the fans. Chris Carrabba's hair was everywhere in 2002 - playing the songs that made the whole world sing. Sure, some of the songs were sad. But you know what? Playing those sad songs for thousands upon thousands of fans, hearing them sing back, hearing their stories after the concerts as they lined up for hours, had a funny effect on Chris. It made him happy.
As Carrabba told Spin when he graced the magazine's cover in March of this year, what had started as a venue for dealing with some very bad things in his life had transformed itself. Dashboard Confessional was now a band, and a mouthpiece for all of the emotions that bopped around like pinballs in the talented, surprisingly chipper head of Chris Carrabba. Dashboard Confessional had become A Mark. A Mission. A Brand. A Scar. But it had also become a release.
And now it's time for Dashboard Confessional v 3.0. A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar was recorded and produced in Chris's hometown of Boca Raton, Florida by the brilliant Gil Norton (The Pixies, Foo Fighters). And it is the sound of a young artist coming into his own. The record begins with a song familiar to anyone with a copy of 2001's So Impossible EP or anyone who attended one of Dashboard Confessional's myriad live shows: "Hands Down." The song is a breathless sprint through the moonlit memories of young love at a high school party. Carrabba used to introduce the song as being about the best night of his life and it was the capper of every concert. Not anymore: now the night's just getting started. Next up is the anthemic "Rapid Hope Loss" and you should realize something by now: Dashboard Confessional is, like, a band. It's not just that earnest young dude - he's there, sure, but he's brought company. Drummer Mike Marsh, Guitarist Johnny Leffler, and bassist Scott Schoenbeck are equal partners in Dashboard Confessional's live dynamic and with A Mark . . . they've made their presence felt on record as well. "I wanted to play songs that were more fully realized," Carrabba says, "both lyrically and musically, and having a band of this caliber behind me allowed me to do just that."
Chris Carrabba's storytelling ability is the constant throughout the album, the rest is surprising in its diversity. The blissful "As Lovers Go" and the sweet, haunting "Carve Your Heart Out" have a sunkissed, last-summer melancholy to them, dripping with harmonies and expansive melodies. "Carry This Picture" is a nice and easy ramble through the docks of Carrabba's Florida home, while "Bend and Not Break" and "If You Can't Leave It Be Might As Well Make It Bleed" (recorded at the last minute by Carrabba and the band in his apartment) are crowd-inspiring stormers in the traditional Dashboard mode. "I wrote my last album in two weeks when I was in a dark place," he says, "I wrote this one over a year and a half. I guess some people are always going to brand me as 'the sad guy,' but that's just not me. Everyone has bad periods in their lives. This record is about where I've been, certainly, but it's also about where I'm going and what I'm becoming."
The heart of A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar comes, appropriately, at the midway point. "Ghost of a Good Thing" is a spare and beautiful lament that cautions a friend not to waste precious time on the impossible, when the possible can be so much more rewarding. And "Am I Missing?" captures the churning jumble that life has been for Chris Carrabba over the past 3 years before ending with the blissful refrain of "I'm home." There is no longer any hopeless desolation, no more "walking open wounds." Just the scars and the helpful memories they provide about what matters most.
"To me, the theme of this record is striving for whatever it is that's important to you," Carrabba says. "Whether it's love or lifelong dreams, I finally realized how silly it is to pull your punches." It's telling that the last words uttered on the last song of the album - the epic "Several Ways to Die Trying" (Carrabba's take on Hollywood, the land where people often forget that struggling is just as important to dreams as achieving them) - are "I'm dying to live." "For the first time in my life," Carrabba says, "the future is wide open. What can't I do now?"
Dashboard Confessional has earned a legion of notoriously loyal and passionate fans all of whom are willing to let Chris Carrabba grow, develop, and change - both personally and musically. Now it's time for the rest of the music-loving world to do the same. Yes, A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar is earnest and heartfelt. It's also coy, charming, effusive, complicated, warm, in love, in doubt, and ready to live everyday with you from morning until very, very late into the night. Give it a listen. And don't be embarrassed when you start singing along.
