The Academy Is . . . Preview

The Academy Is . . .
Metro, Chicago
Tuesday, April 3, 2007

It’s now or never for The Academy Is . . ., having watched local friends in Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, and Panic! At The Disco scale the pop heights.

Santi will be released the same day as this show by Fueled By Ramen/Atlantic, and keeps in step with the soaring emo hands played already by FOB and MCR. What makes it less jarring than their peers, however, is Academy were never very punk or emo to begin with. Bill Beckett and Mike Carden very consciously kept the edges off their debut, Almost Here, they just didn’t have the production budget that makes Santi so undeniable.

Guitars are still front and center, but two of the ballsiest tracks (“We’ve Got A Big Mess On Our Hands” and “Bulls In Brooklyn”) have been filed down to meet the larger arrangement. (Despite the malleability of its lyrics, no self-respecting hate group would adopt “Same Blood” as an anthem.) Beckett, whose idiosyncratic voice occasionally borders on pouty, packs each song with super-sized radio hooks, and pads them excessively for maximum playability. “Seed” and “LAX To O’Hare” in particular sugar rush the stage without abandon.

What’s missing, however, is a destination. Unlike The Black Parade, which giddily unfolds as it progresses, Santi (like Infinity On High) goes down easy but is full of empty calories. It’s not necessarily bad; Def Leppard were so addicted to sweet things they named a song for the cane harvest. But with Def Leppard you knew the band were trying to make the biggest album possible and discovered their acumen for it by building from the ground up. The Academy Is seem to have stopped at “pretty big.” Success isn’t to be found in the processed beats and masked vocals of “You Might Have Noticed” or the stadium-ballad symphonics of “Everything We Had” — anyone can pile icing on a cake. The best bakers cram the goodies — strawberries, alternating chocolates — inside the pastry, making the gluttony all the more satisfying.

Treaty Of Paris, Dormlife, and The Obstacles open.

— Steve Forstneger

Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly