Dashboard Confessional's "In The Shade of Poison Trees"

Dashboard Confessional was started in 2000, as a side project from lead singer Chris Carrabba's venture with Further Seems Forever. Dashboard Confessional released their debut full-length The Swiss Army Romance in 2000, followed by The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most (2001), A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar (2003), Dusk and Summer (June 2006). Their latest release, The Shade of Poison Trees, was released on October 2, 2007. Dashboard Confessional has been one of my favorite bands for about 4 years now. They’ve gotten to be pretty mainstream without selling out, and Chris Carabba knows how to write heartfelt lyrics and great acoustic guitar riffs better than anyone. I believe the recurring theme for this album is "leading double lives". Some are “gilded” lives, others are lives of privilege pretending to be down and out.

“Where There’s Gold…”, the opener, features Chris Carrabba’s trademark catchy guitar playing and thought provoking lyrics. The mantra “Where there’s gold, theres a gold-digger." is repeated--it seemed to become more and more meaningful each time it was repeated. This song also contains one of the most amazing one-liners on the album: “Mistresses have all the fun, but no ones ever there to take you home.” It sums up what Dashboard is all about in one line. Simple, to-the-point lyrics, that are easy to understand, yet so clever.

“Keep Watch for the Mines” is my least favorite track on this album. I find the guitar rhythm annoying, and the melody boring and drawn out. This is just a personal preference, because this isn’t necessarily a bad song, I just don’t enjoy the sound or the lyrics very much—I’d call it mediocre. But it sticks out like a sore thumb compared to all of the other amazing songs.

“These Bones” is one of my two favorite songs on this album, mainly because of the great rhythm and melody. The lyrics are not very deep, but I feel that this song is meant to be loved for its melody and pop quality rather than its lyrical content.

Not gonna lie, the first time I heard “Fever Dreams”, I found it so annoying that I changed the song. Chris’s falsetto was so annoying, and I really just wasn’t into it. But the more I listened to it, the more I loved it. However, this was another song that wasn’t so gratifying lyrically. The phrase “Fever dreams can only haunt you ‘til the fever breaks” is said frequently, and I honestly wanna stalk Chris Carrabba just so I can ask him what the hell a fever dream is. Wet dream? Hot flashes? Chris PLEASE explain these things to me for the sake of us all!

We reach the halfway point with “The Shade of Poison Trees”, the track that this album is named for, and with good reason. This is my favorite song of the album. Chris really focused on the lyrics and let them speak for themselves, with just simple chords on an acoustic and occasional violin in the background. This song is so reminiscent of “Dusk and Summer” , the song that Dashboard’s last album was named after. Simple, acoustic, amazing. A theme of duality and secretiveness is prevalent with the phrase “If you knew what I know…” repeated in the beginning of each verse. The song closes with the line “As we lie in the shade of poison trees, are we as safe as we let ourselves believe?” Good question.

“Matters of Blood and Connection” has the most honest lyrics I’ve heard in a while, they actually remind me of kids in my high school. It’s the song that personifies the afore mentioned theme of lying, secrets and living a double life. It’s about privileged kids pretending to be of a lower class and pretending that they’ve been through it all, as shown in the line “Why do you speak with that accent now? Everyone knows you’re not from the streets.” It makes me laugh really, because it reminds me of Vanilla Ice of all things. You know, ice ice baby, the pathetic white rapper who pretended to be hardened by the streets. He really grew up in the burbs with his family, living a life of privilege.

“The Widows Peak” is about a guy who leaves his girl behind, “watching the ships come in”, aka waiting around doing nothing, waiting for his return. He promises that he’ll come home, and that their relationship can only get stronger with the distance, and it will take a hell of a lot more than 200 miles to separate them. So romantic and poetic, other than "Poison Trees" this is the best lyrical effort made by Carrabba in this release. Ships are constantly used as a metaphor for people, they are tethered, they sail, they wait. It’s a great close to the album, one damn good album at that.