Sunday, May 01, 2005

"Screaming Infidelities" by Dashboard Confessional

I'm feeling nostalgic today, and this song brings back memories of my last summer as a camp counselor. This is the all acoustic version of the song, which skips the off-kilter drum beats and odd rhythm of the radio version, just sticking to a normal strum pattern. Not to say that this is sparse, because it's not, actually the guitar used is a twelve string, to give it a deep, rich sound and it is tuned a very specific tuning, which has Db in 3 octaves to give it a huge sound for only a single instrument. The pattern is played over and over throughout the song, giving the real interst to the vocal line. Unlike a lot of pop songs, the line on this song is constantly changing, adding different inflection to each verse, to mimic the changing tone of the song. Between the verse there is a small guitar riff that goes along with the chorus, and seems to just grow out of the guitar part, which seems spontaneous and organic all at the same time. We come back to the second verse, this time it's not as reserved and quiet, but the voice is higher, strained and pleading. This verse takes the same material and gives it an entirely new emotion, as the vocals seemingly rip through the music. We have another chorus with the little riff, then come crashing down with new material, the tagline of "Screaming Infidelities" comes in with the huge unison chord, where we hear the depth of the guitar as well as a primal scream from the vocals, accusing the unknown woman of everything done wrong to him. It's a pretty straightforward piece, as is a lot of emo music, without a lot of style but trying to pack on substance. It's a great angry song that for some reason doesn't sound so angry.

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