About The Academic
From four school friends in the Irish midlands to two-time No. 1 artists with a global audience, The Academic have spent more than a decade building something that extends beyond the usual life cycle of an indie-rock band. Across two chart-topping albums, years of international touring and millions of streams, Craig Fitzgerald, Dean Gavin, Matthew Murtagh and Stephen Murtagh have developed a sound rooted in the immediacy of guitar music but increasingly defined by the timeless art of writing a great song.
The story began in Mullingar, County Westmeath, where the four members first came together as teenagers. What started as a shared love of making music quickly developed into something more serious, as local shows gave way to bigger stages and an audience that stretched well beyond their hometown. From the beginning, The Academic had a natural instinct for melody, guitars that moved with purpose, choruses that demanded to be sung back, and an energy that translated effortlessly from record to stage.
Their debut album, Tales from the Backseat, arrived in 2018 and went straight to No. 1 in Ireland, establishing The Academic as one of the country's most exciting guitar bands. It was the sound of a young group hitting its stride, full of restless momentum, infectious hooks and the sense of possibility that comes with discovering just how far a song can travel. The success opened the door to an international career, taking the band across the UK, Europe, North America and beyond, where their reputation as a formidable live act continued to grow.
Rather than simply repeating the formula, The Academic used their second album, Sitting Pretty, to push further. Released in 2023, it became their second Irish No. 1, confirming that the success of their debut had been no passing moment. By then, the band had built a substantial international following, carried by a growing catalogue of songs, a relentless touring schedule and a fanbase that had followed them from the small rooms of Ireland to venues around the world. Millions of streams tell part of the story, the connection between the band and the people singing their songs back to them tells the rest.
Now, with their third album, I'm Not Crying You Are, The Academic enter a new chapter. Recorded in Dublin at Hellfire Studios with Pete Robertson, whose production credits include The Vaccines and Beabadoobee, the album finds the band reaching beyond the familiar boundaries of indie rock towards a sound with greater depth, ambition and staying power.
The shift is not about abandoning the qualities that brought them here. The melodies remain immediate, the guitars retain their energy, and the choruses still carry the kind of emotional release that has always been central to The Academic's appeal. What has changed is the scope of the songwriting. There is a new assurance in the arrangements, a willingness to let songs breathe, and a more nuanced understanding of the complicated feelings that sit beneath the surface of everyday life.
The influences are broader, too. The Beatles' instinct for melody and arrangement runs through the record, alongside the lyrical storytelling of Bob Dylan and the raw, unsentimental edge of Lou Reed. These are not simply reference points or gestures towards the past, but part of a wider songwriting tradition that The Academic are increasingly comfortable inhabiting. The result is a record that feels connected to the history of great guitar music without being trapped by it, contemporary in its energy, classic in its instincts, and grounded in the personalities of the four musicians making it.
There is a particular confidence that comes from growing up together in a band. Fitzgerald, Gavin and the Murtagh brothers have spent years learning how to write, record and perform as a unit, and that shared history gives the new album a cohesion that cannot be manufactured. The songs feel less concerned with proving what The Academic can do than with getting to the heart of what they want to say. The emotional world is richer, the perspectives more grown-up, and the music unafraid to hold melancholy and exhilaration in the same breath.
That maturity makes I'm Not Crying You Are feel like more than the next step in an established career. It is the sound of a band with two No. 1 albums behind it, an international audience in front of it and the freedom to define its future on its own terms. After years spent taking their music around the world, The Academic are turning their attention towards something more enduring, songs that reward repeated listening, reveal more with time and stand on their own long after the moment that inspired them has passed.
The journey from Mullingar to the international stage has been a remarkable one, but I'm Not Crying You Are suggests that The Academic are less interested in looking back than in discovering what comes next. Their third album finds them growing into a broader musical identity without losing the instinctive chemistry, melodic precision and emotional directness that made them a band worth following in the first place.
They began as four friends who wanted to make great guitar music. With I'm Not Crying You Are, The Academic are making a case for something bigger: a body of work built not simply for the moment, but for the long run.
I'm Not Crying You Are, the third album from The Academic, is released January 22nd.
