All The Truth That I Can Tell

Following a harrowing start to the 2020s, when frontman Chris Carrabba was in a major motorcycle accident in the midst of pandemic lockdown, his long-running emo outfit Dashboard Confessional issued their ninth studio album, All the Truth That I Can Tell. A stark reversal of 2018's synth-and-beats-inclusive Crooked Shadows, the introspective set recalls the group's earliest work -- 2000's The Swiss Army Romance and 2001's The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most -- employing sparse arrangements and an acoustic guitar to the same emotionally devastating effect. Carrabba even recruited the same producer of those seminal emo works, James Paul Wisner. All the expected Dashboard hallmarks are present, from the wounded vulnerability and bleeding-heart lyrics to the patient guitar strumming and spare backing, which should have longtime devotees weeping with joy and nostalgic sadness (look no further than "Sleep In," which feels like a time machine to the year 2000). It's been two decades since Dashboard's debut, and Carrabba has matured and found some semblance of solace, which was already clear on Crooked Shadows, that sole release from the 2010s. Instead of being a simple retread, All the Truth is an exercise in simplicity and clarity. Taking Carrabba's usual emotional insight and pushing the wisdom of adulthood to the fore, the songs cast him as a kind of emo sage who hasn't quite figured it all out yet, but is still here to hold a hand and offer a shoulder to cry on, like on the urgent "Everyone Else Is Just Noise" and the aspirational "Here's to Moving On," which encourages with a slew of life mantras such as "Here's to fighting less/Here's to living more." For those in need of a fuller cathartic release, there's still plenty of emotional bloodletting to go around, whether on the wounded "Burning Heart" or the bittersweet "The Better of Me." However, the floodgates aren't truly opened until the tender highlight "Me and Mine," which finds Carrabba in peak storytelling mode, spinning a multigenerational tale of love and mortality that won't leave a dry eye in the house. For listeners who miss the simpler early days, All the Truth That I Can Tell is a treasure trove of comfort and familiarity, an utterly relatable collection of growth and hope tempered by the starkness of reality. ~ Neil Z. Yeung