So Impossible

Dashboard Confessional: Christopher Ender Carrabba (vocals, guitar). Additional personnel: Dan Homer (guitar). Personnel: Chris Carrabba (vocals, guitar); Dave Horner (guitar). Recording information: Wisner Productions, St. Cloud, FL. Arranger: Chris Carrabba. Dashboard Confessional’s Christopher Carrabba is brokenhearted, but also wise enough to be brash and thoughtful enough to strip his soul bare of his signature angst and pain on So Impossible. This four-song EP depicts young love and the anxiety and inquisitions that follow. It also marks the debut of Sunny Day Real Estate’s Dan Hoerner. Now a duo, Dashboard Confessional exudes something kinetic with breathy acoustics, and Carrabba’s lush vocal cry is passionate and wistful. “For You to Notice” yearns with desire — the feeling of sweaty palms or butterflies when one learns of their admiration for someone and how one might go about expressing it. Taking things further, “So Impossible” moves into the almost awkward phase of an introduction, and you almost believe that Carrabba might be the one who’s plaguing himself a fool for going ahead with this love thing. The actual date arrives in calm and eerie acoustics of “Remember to Breathe,” but the twitchy pop riffs in “Hands Down” culminates how it really ended. Good or bad, young love, young lust, and constant self-deprecation lead to something hopeful. Dashboard Confessional shapes it into something beautiful and inviting, and So Impossible reflects what everyone has faced at one time or another. ~ MacKenzie Wilson