'Fast Times at Barrington High' on the bland side

When a band starts strong and gets better by growing in leaps and bounds, what in the world would possess it to take a massive step backward in development? But that's exactly what hometown heroes The Academy Is... has done with its latest, the cheekily-titled "Fast Times at Barrington High."

In a seeming attempt to eschew the Bowie-meets-Zeppelin swagger of "Santi," "Fast Times" comes across like the missing link between the Plain White T's and the Jonas Brothers, in a blatant attempt to appeal to the grade-school masses. The first single, "About A Girl," is a wholly unremarkable cookie-cutter pop song, perfect for scanning past with the radio on and the windows down on a summer's day. And the rest of the album doesn't fare much better.

The highlight of the album is "After The Last Midtown Show," but its appeal is the title. The music is that of a tepid ballad, the lyrics are moderately touching generic love poetry, but the idea that the whole scene goes down before Gabe Saporta disbanded the legendary pop-punk foursome to cash in on the dance-rock phenomenon with Cobra Starship adds a slightly reminiscent tone that, for me personally, makes the tune stand out.

Unfortunately, one nifty song title and a cache of solid, forgettable pop songs does not make an album - nor is it the kind of thing reputations are built upon. Once-promising contenders to fill stadiums with a classic-rock swagger, frontman William Beckett and company seem now to have taken more influence from Beckett's time with Cobra Starship and Gym Class Heroes than their own record collections. The results are at best underwhelming and at worst truly insipid.