Dashboard Confessional, ‘All The Truth That I Can Tell’

If an emo singer-songwriter touts new music as honesty-driven, it should set off some alarm bells. The genre isn’t exactly known for Springsteen-esque fictionalizing. No, if you came up in emo, you were born with your heart fully outside of your body and attached to your sleeve. So when Chris Carrabba, the ringleader of Dashboard Confessional, says that honesty was at the forefront of the entertaining new acoustic-guitar-driven songs on All The Truth That I Can Tell, what does it say about his previous songs?

Even though Dashboard Confessional employs the signature folky sound structure of the genre that’s even more associated with “saying it like it is,” coffeehouse folk or bar singalongs, there’s not enough depth in the lyricism on most of the tracks for anyone other than Carrabba or those close to him to fully appreciate this focus on honesty. There’s plenty of heart-wringing emotion to go around, but these emotions won’t bring Carrabba’s listeners closer to him.

For these reasons, Dashboard Confessional’s ninth studio album is not a huge step forward for the band. But for the artist, it might be a miracle that he’s here at all. Coming on the heels of 2018’s Crooked Shadows, Carrabba already had the first song written. “Burning Heart,” which opens the album, came together ahead of a show on a past tour. Carrabba performed the uptempo major-chord strummed tune an hour later.

It aptly sets the mood for the rest of the tracks on All The Truth That I Can Tell, as Carrabba addresses someone in his life, or his past: “Since we’re being honest for the first time, in a long time…” With a quivering voice, he sings of seeing her everywhere he goes. The intended recipient will get the message, but other listeners are left with platitudes like, “And if I never make a sound, it just may kill me.”

Then he hit a dry patch, not writing the rest of the songs over 10 days in 2019. He has said that could have spelled the end for the band.

Then there’s Chris Carrabba’s near-death experience, which goes unaddressed on this album. In summer of 2020, he ended up in a full-body cast after a motorcycle crash. He came within shouting distance of not being here for the release of this album. Both he and the world have been through so much since 2019. Knowing in advance these songs are from so long ago doesn’t do the album many favors.

Still, All The Truth That I Can Tell is not without merit, blending the emo heart of Dashboard Confessional sound with singer-songwriter sensibilities. Carrabba tapped James Paul Wisner, who produced the band’s first two studio albums, The Swiss Army Romance and The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most, more than two decades ago. Wisner does a great job of blurring the lines between these two tacts, keeping the album lively in the process.

Songs like “Everyone Else Is Just Noise” and “Here’s to Moving On” come with prerequisite pop-punk angst even though they’re essentially acoustic ballads. Both look at the concept of home as settings between very relatable human interactions. The latter song recounts specific minute moments like drop in barometric pressure before a storm: “This house isn’t empty/ It’s settling down for the night.” The former song’s setting is so relatable that countless stories have been written about the premise: “Did you hear the news?/ They’re tearing our building down/ Making way for the future/ They don’t want no relics around.”

“Southbound and Sinking” keeps the bar singalong pace, while “Pain Free in Three Chords” is a shot of pop-punk and offers the biggest arrangement on the album. It’s one of the few moments where you remember that Dashboard Confessional is a full band. But the heart of the album comes on softer ballads like “Me and Mine,” “Sleep In” and the title track. On that one, Carrabba offers both his strength as a songwriter and the ambiguity of not following through with the goal.

“I have some stories I would like to tell/ But I’ve sworn myself to secrecy,” he whisper-sings. “I have some deep regrets/ Some things you don’t forget/ They haunt you for eternity.”

The album fits neatly into the Dashboard Confessional songbook. The emotion is all there. You can relate to it by plugging in your own experiences in the many specifics he’s withholding.

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.