Word: altered
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...identity between two disparate sounds: urgent punk—like breakthrough single “Hands Down”—and lovelorn, acoustic balladry, such as the early fan-favorite “Screaming Infidelities.” Carrabba’s newest effort. “Alter the Ending,” strikes a middle ground between these two extremes, but the final product is somewhat inconsistent; “Alter the Ending” excels in the realm of emotional power ballads but also contains a great deal of uninspiring three-chord filler, resulting...
Unfortunately, what makes “Alter the Ending” an often dissatisfying listen is the uniformity of about half the album’s songwriting. Consisting of the same thick guitar lines, intense drumming, and vocal acrobatics of Carrabba’s wobbly tenor, the band’s newest efforts sound like weak facsimiles of “Hands Down” and “Vindicated.” The songs feebly retread old territory rather than covering new ground...
Dashboard Confessional unfortunately elects on “Alter The Ending” to limit the usage of their greater strength: the acoustic, heartbrokenly witty ballads on which they built their early career. Two of the album’s finest tracks, “Even Now” and the moody closer “Hell On the Throat,” excel above the rest due to the naked emotion and simplistic strumming, enhanced only occasionally with a shimmering synth or lonely drum beat. On “Even Now,” Carrabba softly sings...
...cold / Play hell on the throat / ’Til everything I say burns like cinders / Well it’s hard to belong / To a girl or a song / In the crease of a strangling winter.” It is at such moments that “Alter the Ending” truly shines; unfortunately, such compositions are few and far between on the album, included as afterthoughts rather than centerpieces, taking the backseat to one too many loud alt-rockers...
...ecosystems of the area. It cuts off migration routes for species such as the Sonoma Pronghorn, already endangered, whose population has crashed to as few as 31 individuals. If congress had not exempted the border patrol from the ESA, this damage would have been sufficient to stop or dramatically alter the construction plans. Instead, building the wall has categorically ignored environmental damage and, as a result, threatened the survival of the only known pair of breeding jaguars in the United States...