Alternative Press teamed up with the Academy Is… for an exclusive vinyl of Almost There, limited to 400. Head to the AP Shop to grab yours.
The Academy Is… have announced Almost There, their first full-length in 18 years. Almost There, out March 27 via I Surrender Records, is a counterpart to the band’s debut record, 2005’s Almost Here. On Almost There, they reflect on the perspective and change they’ve experienced in 20 years, reconnecting with each other, and returning home.
“When we started writing again, home was not really a place so much as it was a feeling,” guitarist Mike Carden says exclusively to AP. “There was something beneath it all that felt unfinished, like we still had more to say. Personally, I felt that there was still a lot more to say, and many chapters between the last record and this one that felt worth exploring. These guys are like my brothers, and when you’re younger, we didn’t really understand what we had and how special that bond was. As you get older, you appreciate that in a much deeper way.”
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The 11-track album includes the record’s reflective lead single, “2005,” out today. “As we started writing this record, pretty quickly, it became clear that it was turning into a companion piece to Almost Here,” vocalist William Beckett shares. “The whole record really became about looking back and trying to make sense of what actually happened during the last twenty years. We were thinking about the themes we were writing about on the first record and asking ourselves if any of that came true, or how it played out in real life. Once we started digging into that, it opened up a lot creatively. We were not just revisiting those ideas for nostalgia — we were interrogating them from where we are now and seeing what still held up, what changed, and what felt different with time and perspective.”
Last year, the Academy Is… embarked on a 20th anniversary tour for Almost Here, a collection of reunion shows that pushed the band to have a “gradual realization” that they should push forward. “Playing reunion shows after the pandemic was incredible, but life had changed a lot for all of us,” Carden says. “It became pretty clear that if we were going to keep playing together, it could not just be about revisiting the past. We had to start making new music again. That was really when Bill and I started writing. Once that happened, everything shifted. That is when it stopped feeling like a reunion and started feeling like something new, like another chapter opening up. Felt like a new band.”
Watch the video for “2005,” check out the tracklist for Almost There, and their 2026 tour dates below.
The Academy Is… – Almost There tracklist
- “Up In The Air”
- “Miracle”
- “2005”
- “Freak Out”
- “Snow Days”
- “100mph”
- “Floating Through Time” (interlude)
- “L Train”
- “Lost Signals”
- “Lulu Boy”
- “Ten Years”
The Academy Is… 2026 tour dates
04/10 – Buffalo, NY @ Town Ballroom
04/11 – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall
04/15 – Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead Theatre
04/16 – Nashville, TN @ Brooklyn Bowl Nashville
04/18 – Tampa, FL @ The Ritz Ybor
04/19 – Orlando, FL @ House of Blues Orlando
04/24 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s
04/25 – Dallas, TX @ The Echo
04/26 – Houston, TX @ House of Blues Houston
05/01 – Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
05/02 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox at The Market
05/07 – Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades
05/08 – Berkeley, CA @ The UC Theatre
05/09 – San Diego, CA @ The Observatory North Park