The Academic are pleased to release a new track, Acting My Age. t is streaming now, and is lifted from a brand new EP out on Friday via Capitol Records.
Listen to the new single here: https://theacademic.lnk.to/AMASingle
The track, and resulting EP was produced by Kaiser Chiefs’ Nick Hodgson. It’s a razor-sharp, guitar track by a band who do razor-sharp guitar tracks in spades. Adventurous and propulsive, it showcases one of Ireland’s best new bands on the cusp of becoming the best new band in Ireland, the UK, and beyond.
As Mullinger’s finest (with much respect to ¼ of One Direction who also trod the very same turf growing up), The Academic are already deemed hometown heroes in the heart of Ireland with a number one album to their name. And of you were a betting person, you’d probably fancy a flutter on The Academic repeating their chart success further afield. The songs are the sort that make a quick impact; sharp, buoyant and explosive. By second listen you’ve got the melodies nailed, fizzing around in your cranium. Instant gratification. Time is precious.
That The Academic make music that embraces the electric guitar and aren’t shy of arena sized choruses suggests that guitar music could well be heading straight back to the mainstream after a decade or more laying resolutely fallow. Some would confidently argue that we’ve been in rude health for the past few years. With Idles and Shame’s state-of-the-nation punkish potency swinging open the doors for the likes of Fontaines D.C. and Murder Capital to burst their heads above the underground, over in the mainstream Sam Fender has been marrying critical acclaim with solid sales (a rarity), his chest-thumping Springsteen-esque tales of a community’s heart and struggle flying straight to the top of the charts. Meanwhile, The 1975, veritable stalwarts on their own podium, now feel positively pop, yet at their very soul is an innovative, smart-talking guitar band with surely one eye on stadiums having long since slayed the festival fields and arenas. Catfish & The Bottlemen and Blossoms also tease arena sized audiences, whilst off the media radar you’ve got the likes of Gerry Cinnamon, Sea Girls and The Lathams cautiously bothering bigger live rooms to ever increasing audiences. But this feels palpably different. The odds feel less of a risk. The door is swinging wide open.
Despite being in the infancy as a global concern, The Academic have already sold out rooms across the UK in semi-regular forays outside of Ireland, and they’ve also received the props of Mick Jagger who personally selected them to support The Rolling Stones in Dublin. That Mullinger has them down as hometown heroes and local-boys-about-to-explode, will doubtless be of importance to those who have studied the rulebook of city specific era-defining guitar acts from Oasis to Arctic Monkeys, Sam Fender to Kasabian. Primed now as Ireland’s most likely to, The Academic are ready to become what they deserve.
