Academic Return With First New Music of 2022 'Don't Take It Personally'

Irish band The Academic are back with their first single of 2022, "Don't Take It Personally." The song is out now via Capitol Records. "Don't Take It Personally" arrives with a one-take live video, shot during a recent UK festival performance.

"Don't Take It Personally" is the sound of a band that intrinsically know their way around a melody. Friends for as long as they can collectively form memories as boys at school, there's that classic gang mentality about this four-piece honed by years of live shows from the halls and backroom pubs of Ireland to the wide-open fields of the festival circuit (via support slots for the likes of the Rolling Stones, Noel Gallagher, and The Strokes).

Musically, the track doesn't require too much description; a bold guitar tune that best evokes the sound of primetime 2000s NY guitar bands, harnessed by vocalist Craig Fitzgerald's acute observations on the fragility of man and how that feeds a desperate desire to be seen as anything but fragile. It packs a punch and demands your attention.

"Don't Take It Personally" follows The Academic's Community Spirit EP that saw the Mullinger four-piece honing their knack for epitomizing the excitement and apprehension that one meets at the intersect between youth and adulthood, without a hint of cynicism or pretense. The songs off Community Spirit are sky-scraping, heart-on-the sleeve anthems, accented with guitar hooks which immediately take up residency in the head of anyone who listens.

Watch the new music video here: