- Critic Score
- Most active
- Publication
- Most clicked
-
Feb 13, 201380Ostensibly a song-cycle about prep school kids spread over an 11 tracks, the close quarters become the sites of devotion, betrayal, communion (or near-communion), and abject loneliness. But relating to that isn't required to enjoy this rich recording.
-
Jan 17, 201370Academy is an ambitious album. Unfortunately, it lacks in the final burst of tenacity needed to alleviate the aural blue balls it conjures.
-
Jan 17, 201370The themes are vague enough that they could be applied to any number of relationships or situations, and far more captivating are the arrangements and dynamic shifts in orchestrations that make up the cyclical nature of the album.
-
Jan 17, 201370Singer John Orth's gentle vibrato is well positioned to channel the nervous, ephemeral innocence of boyhood curiosity.
-
Feb 6, 201360The crystalline vocals hint at either uplifting profundity or overblown pomposity--it's hard to say which. [Mar 2013, p.98]
-
Jan 18, 201360This all adds up to an ambitious record, the most thematically ambitious of Holopaw's discography, but it's a set that can't quite live up to those lofty goals.
-
Jan 17, 201360Orth starts off with a very promising narrative, but soon loses the listener, and himself, in the world he's created.
-
Jan 17, 201358The album simply flickers out like a candle, with the faint promise of another visit to this setting.
-
Feb 25, 201350After the sparse and pretty "Bedfellows Farewell," which offers a tender counterpoint to virtually every other song on the album, Academy quickly loses steam.