Dusk and Summer

Dashboard Confessional was originally a place for Further Seems Forever frontman Chris Carrabba to air his personal dirty laundry with an acoustic guitar. But by album No. 4, unadorned simplicity has given way to arena-rock bombast. The bigger guitars and booming drums certainly suit his tunes, which have always been heavy on oversize emotions and operatic melodrama, but it’s hard to hear lyrics like “I can taste you in my mouth/Before the words escape my lungs” echo from the rafters without wanting to smack Carrabba in the mouth. Or the lungs.