Dashboard Confessional: The Shade of Poison Trees

Dashboard Confessional: The Shade of Poison Trees Dashboard Confessional has always been Chris Carrabba. When Dashboard first appeared on the scene in 2000, I wanted to like him. He was born and raised in West Hartford, CT, the town next to where I was born and raised. He got his start playing the same places I went. But Dashboard's super sappy acoustic rock always rang a little to trite to me. I could never really get into him. I must admit after his sophomore album, The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most I stopped listening. Of course I heard some tracks like "Vindicated" from the Spiderman soundtrack, but I never really paid attention. Seven years after he appeared on the scene, his sixth album The Shade of the Poison Trees is hailed as his return to form. I decided I would try again. I must say I never thought I would use the word "impressed" in the same sentence as Dashboard Confessional, but I was impressed by The Shade of the Poison Tree. The opening track "Where There's Gold..." is a much more fun song than I was used to hearing from Dashboard. "Fever Dreams" is a pop song through and through with its falsetto chorus and computerized drum beat. Not to say that he's completely abandoned the super sappy lyrical content that first brought him to fame. The song for which the album is named is the sappiest of the sappy and completely unlistenable to me. Overall as I said before, I was impressed with the album. It was never a Dashboard fan but this album is a much more listenable album than what I was expecting from Chris at this point in his career. Rating: 5.3/10 MP3: Dashboard Confessional "Where There's Gold..."