Album Details

• Artist: The Academy Is...
• Album: Santi
• Label: Fueled By Ramen
• Year of Release: 2007
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: symphony on 2007-04-13

Fueled By Ramen Records has a track record for bleeding bands into the industry that have what could be called the 'right stuff.' These bands will sell out shows and their catalogs will fill racks and then empty them just as fast. Panic! At The Disco had the 'right stuff,' albeit the bad kind of right stuff with pop cliches and their hair does that flippy bullshit that crazily appealing to the young'uns. Fall Out Boy eventually jumped to a major record label; they too had the 'right stuff'--the good kind though with a slight limp that kind of made them a longshot for their college track team. The Academy Is..., with their unnessary elipses and their debut album, Almost Here, had potential. It was a well-delivered and near perfect album that William Beckett sung perfectly. Needless to say, Santi had to climb up a vertical slope to defeat its precursor.

Santi fell way, way below expectations; William Beckett's voice declined from godly to horrible. The music was overprodused, the lyrics were immature, at best--I believe atrocious to be more descriptive word. Oh, oh, how the mighty have fallen. Going through the album once, twice, three times--the urge to hit the next button was so powerf, I'd hit pause and walk away only to come back and suffer through it again. Did any tracks not make me want to inject novacaine into my eardums?

Yes, a few but it is a tiny few. "Same Blood" is an amazing opening track that is a bit deceitful because it leads you to the belief that the rest of the album will be just as spectacular. Wrong. The album moves on to "LAX to O'Hare," which has an intro reminiscent to Jimmy Eat World. The song also has a very good bassline that keeps your toes tapping.

 Sadly, the album falls apart with its first single "We've Got a Bis Mess on Our Hands" and only picks up occassionally  with songs like "Neighbors" where William Becketts sounds decent for one of the few times. Also "Chop Chop" is another stand out, with its amazing intro that leads to another decent showing from Beckett. The real death to this album was the production. The album was viciously overproduced ruining several songs that had potential ("We've Got a Big Mess" could not have been salvaged). You win some you lose some; unfortunately this was a major loss for a band with so much potential that is just was a disappointment to those that were really excited.

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