Emo's future hope and present tripe sound check

CHRIS CARRABBA: The singer-songwriter behind Dashboard Confessional has crafted radio-ready tunes on the band's new album. MARINA CHAVEZ

• Dashboard Confessional, "Dusk and Summer" (Vagrant) and "Bastards of Young" (Image Entertainment double-DVD) – And so Chris Carrabba, the singer-songwriter who is to Dashboard Confessional what Robert Smith is to the Cure, has matured just enough to finally craft the Great Emo Crossover Hope. That is, the streamlined album from the often-unlistenable, more-popular-than-it-thinks-it-is genre that just might push its better practitioners (like DC) away from the indie fringe and onto Star 98 playlists.

Yes, of course, for the thousandth time, no emo band enjoys being tagged emo, or any other media-invented label, for that matter. Like all good insufferable teenagers coping with the real world for the first time, emo kids and their tuneless heroes continue to think their anguish is utterly unique, when actually their resolutely simplistic soundtrack of regurgitated angst has antecedents that go back decades.

To each generation its own misunderstood scene, the roots and meaning of which the DVD "Bastards of Young" attempts to trace. It's a maddening viewing experience, especially for anyone versed in superior punk examinations like "The Decline of Western Civilization" or "Suburbia."

Never mind how inarticulate many of the major players are; that's attributable to age. What's frustrating is that no one ever answers (or perhaps wasn't asked) one key question: Why has this music seized the attention of so many young people?

Instead, we get plenty about the basement-show years that led to the trend that begat groups as varied as Thursday and Taking Back Sunday, Midtown and Jimmy Eat World, even Fall Out Boy and Something Corporate.

All of those acts are included, and fans of them and more (From Autumn to Ashes, Matchbook Romance, Underoath, the Starting Line) will find this a must. So far it is the most accurate and serious account of the scene that dare not speak its name, and the second disc of uninterrupted live performances will thrill acolytes. But it's basically a not-very-deep Spin article with better visuals.

And it barely (if at all) touches on Dashboard, which should give you an indication of how far Carrabba's tender whine has been booted from a genre that insists getting noisier and more incomprehensible signifies something profound.

Carrabba, on the other hand, proved he had more in common with the Death Cab for Cuties of the world well before he even garnered above-ground notice with the single "Screaming Infidelities" five years ago. What "Dusk and Summer" delivers is solidification (this is finally starting to sound like a proper band, not a guy with an acoustic guitar and some support) and a willingness to aim for arena anthems.

Long a spiritual progeny of Counting Crows and U2, Carrabba here lets both influences flourish, enlisting the former's Adam Duritz for the most confident cut ("So Long, So Long") and enveloping all of his new material in a booming sheen that owes much to the Edge and Co.

His lyrics are still soft-headed and ridiculously romantic, and though he's not as overwrought as he once was, the way he conveys his thoughts can still grate. But then, so can Robert Smith's mopey manner when he's without a winning melody. Carrabba bats better than .500 here, maybe for the first time. That's progress. DC: B-; "Bastards": C