Going Back To School With The Academy Is…
From time to time, we like to round up the all-important, all-summarizing last sentences of the biggest new-music reviews. After the jump, we look at the reactions to the new album by the awkwardly punctuated, oft-fantasized-about outfit The Academy Is…, Fast Times At Barrington High, which hits record stores tomorrow.
• “But what makes Fast Times one of the year’s best albums is the sheer fearlessness of throwing everything they can into a big pop song and then artfully hitting the mark time after time until it becomes useless to resist TAI’s many relentless charms any longer.” [Newsday]
• “This album stumbles only when it strays from formula. On the odd ‘Beware! Cougar!’ Mr. Beckett writes a kiss-off to an older woman who has already expressed her lack of interest: ‘When you fake a laugh behind the wheel/ I know where this road is heading to.’ And ‘Coppertone’ is the album’s most ponderous song, with convoluted lyrics and a tone that wavers between seductive and self-loathing. If only he’d stop thinking so hard. ” [NYT]
• “Audiences may’ve been better served if they had the whole summer to play these tunes-as they are made for driving with the windows down on a hot summer night. Either way, previous Academy Is… fans will surely dig the tunes, but Fast Times is probably not the album that will see the band expand their scope too far out of the high school/Warped Tour crowd.” [Alternative Press ]
