Dashboard confessional’s founding singer-songwriter, Chris Carrabba, was having a hard time deciding whether his next album should be a full-on electric rock project or a stripped-down, acoustic affair when he came up with a novel solution.

On November 10, when the band releases its sixth album, Alter the Ending, fans will be able to buy both versions of the same collection of songs.

The regular edition of the release contains electric versions of songs, and the deluxe version comes with a second recording of the same songs done acoustically, for an extra $3.

Carrabba says the acoustic set still features the full band, but with a minimalist approach more reminiscent of when the act was mostly a solo project in the early 2000s. “I can even point to one track, and I won’t tell you which it is, that was my least favourite track, once completed, on the full-band version of Alter the Ending, even though other people love it,” Carrabba says. “And the acoustic version has become my favourite song on the record.”

The two versions of Ending strike a balance between Carrabba’s 2007 release, The Shade of Poison Trees — which his manager Rich Egan calls a “fans-only” record — and the 2006 Dusk and Summer.

Carrabba, who says his interaction with fans always has been one-on-one, also has been active on Twitter. Although he says he’s “very late” to the microblogging site, he has become a prolific tweeter with more than 13,500 followers.

“It’s interesting to have that kind of access to the audience that has embraced you, and you know as well as I do that you don’t get to choose the audience that embraces you,” he says.