- Record Label: Fueled By Ramen
- Release Date: Aug 19, 2008
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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Songs like 'About a Girl' and 'Coppertone' are sunny, jangling, and easily melodic--ideal dog-days-of-summer distractions.
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Fast Times at Barrington High doesn't go to the hoop with every song, but it scores more than enough points to make it a career highlight, not to mention one of the best emo albums (whatever that means) of 2008.
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This is a streamlined, plain-spoken record full of breaking hearts and sticky choruses, and it’s also the band’s best.
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Either way, previous Academy Is... fans will surely dig the tunes, but Fast Times is probably not the album that will see the band expand their scope too far out of the high school/Warped Tour crowd.
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Beckett vividly renders what it's like to be a kid facing real-world issues, dealing with adult relationships ("Beware! Cougar!") and leaving home.
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The tunes are peppy and driving, the performances and production polished to a fault, and the lyrics simultaneously celebratory and wistful.
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Q MagazineIt may ultimately be as disposable as dime-store popping candy, its sugar rush still hits the spot. [Nov 2008, p.107]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 8 out of 11
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Mixed: 1 out of 11
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Negative: 2 out of 11
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ReillyR.Aug 26, 2008
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AlexR.Aug 25, 2008