The Academy Is...
Checkmarks

Shouldn’t this particular brand of desperately wannabe-anthemic emo-pop have died out once current scene queens Panic! At The Disco established a striking new direction for the rightly maligned sub-genre? Appears not, sadly: ‘Checkmarks’ is so by numbers that it’s difficult not to break the riffs down into binary ones and zeros, the objective being to reassemble it in some way that’s slightly more original.

Beyond that comment, there’s little to add about a song that really is so devoid of a unique characteristic that it might as well re-brand itself as one of those mini piss-take tomes that adorn bookshop counters. You know, the ones that change the names of the protagonists slightly so as to avoid legal action, alter the plot enough to appeal to pre-pubescent jokers, and ultimately sell six copies in Tunbridge and another dozen in Hull.

The Academy Is… are a MySpace-born band given too much respect by misinformed and over-enthusiastic industry types: they’ve no soul, no discernable passion and all the compositional skills of a third-rate Fall Out Boy tribute act. What a waste of a deserved-better compact disc.