There's actually not a whole lot to say about this release. I had come to know and appreciate Chris Carrabba like most everyone else (or at least most teenage girls) when he switched from punk rock to acoustic coffee shop guy and pioneered this emerging "emo" thing. I would never succumb fully to the emo lifestyle, being an adult myself. But the songs rang true to the first love experience and I got to reminisce a little about my pretty little angst-filled broken hearted youthishness.Since then, he's done very little other than than trying to expand past what people liked him for. Writing songs probably not too unlike his old songs, but adding completely unnecessary and uninspired band arrangements. Counting Crows, for example, works (works better at least) because those guys are steed in the history of Wings and James Taylor and Van Morrisson. Carrabba and surely his band, are old alt. rockers playing to some Adult Contemporary-aspiring young adults. His lyrics are succumbing to his audience instead of his first album where he's scorning his jailbait listeners.
His new album is filled with tales professing his empathy for the "Belle Of The Boulevard" and taking deep breaths from her laundry to bring back her memory. Don't get me wrong, it's not "bad" in that way of something totally sucking. There's totally an audience for this... those times when the Ellen audience wants to get "introspective" while cooking themselves a special dinner after finishing the latest Twilight novel. That audience just isn't me- and it doesn't cost me too much to come back for each album just to see if that last chick has finally broken Chris' heart again so he and I can have a beer and get back to business. (2 of 5 stars)
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