The key to appreciating Dashboard Confessional, a/k/a 27-year-old Floridian Chris Carrabba, and the plangent portraits of terminal heartache that define a Dashboard Confessional confessional is nothing more complicated than the willful suspension of disbelief. Despite the earnest inspiration and straight-from-the-heart tone of Carrabba’s keening vocals and forcefully strummed acoustic guitars, Dashboard Confessional songs, like the hit single "Screaming Infidelities," rely on his talent as a manipulator of the adolescent psyche. He knows which buttons to push, and he’s not afraid to keep pushing on this CD/DVD release. Even without the visuals, it’s easy to picture the sea of adoring, acne-plagued white teenage faces surrounding him and his sidemen in MTV’s well-appointed Times Square studios and singing every word as though it were their own last chance for romantic redemption. It’s hard not to give in to the undertow of pathos, and Carrabba’s cool tenor and cozy melodies are the sugar that helps the medicine go down. You know it’s all staged, but he has a real gift for keeping his fans hanging on every last lovelorn syllable he utters.