Every once in a great while a band comes along and makes an album that reflects the good time you assume was had in the studio. Just so happens that's what these Fountains Of Wayne boys do. They specialize in a power-pop that recalls those bright days of tight harmonies and catchy melodies of the 1960s, with the added guitar punch of 1970s New Wave and just a pinch of 1990s rhythms to make it sound like yesterday meets yesteryear on today's computer screen.
The first batch of tunes crank like AM radio back before talk radio took over those waves. "Hat And Feet" sounds like the sort of pop you make after having sex for the first time, or maybe it's just an hallucinogenic experience. "The Valley Of Malls" suggests the boys spent a few days listening to the Zombies' Odessey And Oracle, an album that old people say is "life-transforming."
Personal to the boys: Speaking of old people, I'd like to thank FOW for writing a song called "Denise." I have a friend with this name and she's been royally bummed that the only song to namecheck her previously has been Randy & the Rainbows' "Denise Denise," a song she thinks really sucks.
