The Academy Is. . .

The Academy Is... have developed into one of the most promising Warped Tour alumni, with an ability to churn out an arsenal of winning singles, two of which head up their third full-length. The one-size-fits-all pop chorus of "About a Girl" (a title that could have been applied to about any song here) is the album's best, though the band's biting sense of humor is more evident on "Beware! Cougar!"

In every emo band's career, there comes a time for "growing up" — dealing with more
serious subject matter and jettisoning pop punk for a broader sound. Fall Out Boy have
gone that route, but their friends the Academy Is. . . are happy to stay young a little longer.
On their third album, themed around the senior year of high school, frontman William
Beckett captures the struggle of being 18: the feeling that these are "the best da... More >