Dusk and Summer is the fourth studio album by American rock band Dashboard Confessional. Background With the release of A Mark, a Mission, a Brand, a Scar (2003), Dashboard Confessional solidified its line-up of vocalist/guitarist Chris Carrabba, bassist Scott Schoenbeck, guitarist John Lefler and drummer Mike Marsh. The album charted at number two on the Billboard 200 and its single "Hands Down" reached number eight on the Alternative Songs chart. The group contributed the track "Vindicated", which was produced by Don Gilmore, to the Spider-Man 2 soundtrack released in June 2004. Later that month, a live recording of a new track "So Long, So Long" appeared on the group's website. The track marked a change from their past work as it included a piano. Carrabba said the next album would be a piano-driven effort with contributions from the other members. Following this, Carrabba spent the rest of the summer writing material for a new album. In December, the group got together and played through the songs they had. Though Carrabba considered a lot of it unsatisfactory, he figured out the vibe for the next album: "I have this passionate desire to sort of explore space ... [as opposed to] compounding everything into these driving parts." In February 2005, Carrabba scrapped an album's worth of songs as he felt they were too safe: "[F]ans probably would have liked those songs. And people who weren't would have had the same complaints as ever." Carrabba spent two weeks in Florida making several batches of demos of over 30 songs. He rediscovered the material he had written for his previous bands Further Seems Forever and The Vacant Andies, and decided to write tracks that combined elements from them and Dashboard. After another four weeks, he had written a whole new album. Production Through a mutual friend, some of the demos ended up in the hands of producer Daniel Lanois. The demos inspired him to come out of retirement, which he had been in since working on All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000) by U2. Despite having already having plans to record, Carrabba was invited to Jamaica, where Lanois was, to discuss the songs. He flew out and the pair spent a week talking about songs. A day after returning home, Lanois was interested in producing the album. In April, the group worked with Lanois and recorded 20 songs. Half of them at Lanois'