For this week’s post, I am expecting many people to disagree with my choice. I encounter the same problem when I tell people that I listen to Panic(!) at the Disco or Fall Out Boy; there seems to be an assumption that if a band has written some catchy songs or is enjoyed by a massive amount of people that somehow there is no need to listen to their music because it will be terrible. I sincerely hope that changes.

Exhibit A: Santi, the sophomore album by The Academy Is. When this album was released it received a good amount of negative feedback from fans of the first record because the sound was so different (note: this means if you didn’t like their first batch of songs, this album may surprise). Now, don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoyed their first album, Almost Here, but the reason I chose Santi is while the first album is a fun gathering of songs to listen to, the follow-up is a lesson in how to craft a pop-rock album.

The songs are not only catchy, that should be expected by any pop record worth a second listen, they are consistently pushing the barriers of how much artistic freedom you have until you worry about pushing the listener outside of the experience (say dedicating 25 seconds of time in “Bulls in Brooklyn” for screams and hollers in the background of a simple guitar riff). This is the attention to details of Plans from the first week and the pure rock-and-roll of With Love and Squalor from week two meeting up and deciding to create a record. The intro song, “Same Blood,” is simply begging to be played obnoxiously loud on a Thursday night, while “Everything We Had” is the slow and mournful song to get you through a rough day; the brilliance is that both can be listened to back-to-back and neither song out of place. While each song carries it’s own distinct characteristsics, like “Bulls in Brooklyn”‘s distressingly cool verse rhythm section, the minimalism of “Seed,” the too-big-for-speakers chorus of “You Might Have Noticed,” or the Post-Modernistic fuzz glory that is “Unexpected Places,” they all have the overarching tonal quality that signifies this is in fact The Aademy Is, and not any other band.

If you have ever wanted to experience a brilliantly constructed pop record (don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone), this is the place to start. The band does not sacrifice creativity for tonality, and the end result is an album that you cannot miss.

– DJ Walpole, co-host of Hipsters Worldwide, Saturdays from 9-10am on WGTB

Tags: DJ Walpole, Santi, The Academy Is..., weekly columns