Vinyl Record
The Academic - Tales From The Backseat
The Academic - Tales From The Backseat on LP vinyl. A 2018 record available from Kilmorna Collection in Listowel, Ireland.
LP ยท 2018
Available from Kilmorna Collection in Listowel.
Buyer notes: 2018 LP, currently available from the Kilmorna Collection vinyl shelf. Pay for pickup in Listowel or ship within Ireland for EUR 5.50.
Tales From The Backseat is The Academic's debut album, and it captures the Irish band at the point where teenage momentum becomes a full-length identity. The group had already built a following through early singles and the Loose Friends EP, but the album gives that energy a more durable frame. It is full of bright guitar lines, quick melodic turns and the feeling of young people translating small-town restlessness into songs big enough to travel. The Academic's strength here is clarity. They do not bury the hooks or disguise the lineage: this is indie rock designed around immediacy, with choruses that arrive cleanly and guitars that keep the songs moving. Bear Claws, Different and Permanent Vacation show the band's knack for turning nervous romantic and social energy into compact, festival-ready shapes. The album's title fits because much of it feels observed from the rear seat of youth: friends, movement, boredom, longing and the sense that something larger is just out of frame. As a debut, Tales From The Backseat works because it does not overcomplicate the promise. It documents a band with enough confidence to be direct, enough polish to reach beyond Ireland, and enough local spark to keep the songs from feeling factory-made.
The album matters as a key debut from a modern Irish indie band that translated early buzz into a coherent first LP. It captures the late-2010s guitar-pop lane at its most open-hearted: bright, concise and built around the communal lift of live-ready choruses.
This is the natural Academic record to own first. It marks the point where the band moved from promising singles to a full album statement, making it useful for collectors of contemporary Irish rock and for anyone tracking the post-2010 indie guitar revival.
Bright Irish indie rock with clean guitar hooks, youthful urgency, polished choruses and a road-trip sense of restlessness.
Recommended for: Collectors of modern Irish guitar bands; Fans of upbeat indie rock with direct choruses; Listeners who want debut-album energy without rough demo edges.
Is Tales From The Backseat The Academic's debut album? Yes. It is the band's debut studio album, released in 2018. What are key songs from Tales From The Backseat? Bear Claws, Different and Permanent Vacation are central examples of the album's bright, hook-led indie sound. Who should collect this album? It suits listeners following modern Irish indie rock and anyone who likes concise, melodic guitar bands with youthful momentum.