You’d think that after three full lengths TAI would have been able to consistently write good songs…but ‘Fast Times…’ proves otherwise. As with ‘Santi’ this album is a wishy washy mixed bag of greatness and sheer crap – it’s gobsmacking just how far (at both ends of the scale) this album goes. At their summery pop-punk best The Academy Is are a great band. ‘About A Girl’, ‘One More Weekend’ and ‘Crowded Room’ are all really good pop punk songs. While there’s a lack of lyrical wit and sarcasm that made the first album so good, William Beckett’s distinctive vocals sound great and there are some huge catchy choruses.
The thing is, well, for every good song there’s an average song and for every average song there’s a bad one. And it tends to work that as the band slow things down a bit, the worse they get. ‘Rumoured Nights’ is a bit ruddy awful and ‘Automatic Eyes‘ seems to go nowhere. There are a couple of other tunes on the poor side of the good/bad divide too – ‘Beware! Cougar!’ is pretty generic fare while ‘Paper Chase’ fails to live up to the band’s usually high standards.
‘Fast Times…’ isn’t so much a disappointment as a missed opportunity. ‘Almost Here’ is still their most consistent work, for me, with ‘Santi’ the opportunity to go down a more mature route – but not managing to do it consistently. This record kind of follows the same path and with a couple of poor tracks is let down by the same sub-standard three/four songs which would have otherwise made this a very good record. It’s one of those that’s worth a purchase/listen just for the good tracks, but be prepared to use the skip button…