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| Fountains Of Wayne: Welcome Interstate Managers (S-Curve) |
| By Michael Hulme | |
Monday, 15 September 2003 Remember Tom Hanks’ minor cinematic hit That Thing You Do, about the one-hit wonders? Well, you may or may not know that it was Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger, the duo behind New York rockers Fountains Of Wayne, that penned the song on which the film was based. Small world. Fountains Of Wayne themselves are one of those bands that attract critical acclaim by the bucket-load but don’t seem to be able to give their records away.Their eponymous debut album was packed full of power-pop nuggets, and 1999’s Utopia Parkway was perhaps the smartest and catchiest set of songs written about suburban life. Yet despite minor hits with ‘Sink To The Bottom’ and ‘Red Dragon Tattoo’, both albums sank without trace. All this proves is that critics are smart, intelligent, gorgeous witty people that should be taken notice of wherever possible, if not shamelessly propositioned. Well, OK, it doesn’t. But Welcome Interstate Managers is as good as "power-pop" (read: pop songs played on very loud guitars) can possibly get. This time, the songs have moved from suburbia to the office; songs about evil managers, and the boredom of work (‘Bright Future In Sales’, ‘Hey Julie’) jostle with the more typically playful Fountain’s songs (‘Stacy’s Mom’). Each remains true to the band’s sonic blueprint - waves and waves of guitar, keyboard hooks, vocal harmonies to die for, and some truly earth-shaking drumming courtesy of Brian Young. It’s all quite, quite wonderful - imagine the Beach Boys with attitude, or a modern-day Byrds that knew how to write pop songs. They’ve yet to release a bad track, never mind a bad album, and despite their best efforts to shoot themselves in the foot with a shockingly authentic country ballad (‘Since You Hung Up On Me, I’ve Been Hung Up On You’), you cannot help but love this band. Quite simply, brilliant. (5/5) Release Date: 15 September 2003
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