Album Review From Music Central

Meaty, beaty, nerdy, bouncy, Fountains Of Wayne's self-titled debut breezes through an expert fusion of pop and rock sounds and sentiments that blur the decades triumphantly. Jackhammer rhythm guitars and galloping drums rough up the edges, but the songs themselves offer blooms of melody, sparks of lyric intelligence, and droll juxtapositions of these elements that confirm principals Chris Collingwood (vocals, guitars, keyboards) and Adam Schlesinger (all of the above, plus drums) as smart-ass pop killers. De rigeur guitar drones are spiked with lean but lovely vocal harmonies, then splayed open to let acoustic guitars ring, much as the duo's boilerplate vocal style softens to let a more lyrical softness shine through.

Bottom line: Any band that can intone "Lead us not into Penn Station" deserves your attention.

Fountains Of Wayne fulfills its goal of crafting rich, hypnotic rock songs around defiantly mundane vignettes chronicling lust ("Sink To The Bottom"), self-destruction ("She's Got A Problem"), and corporate truancy ("Sick Day") with a bracing mixture of sociological accuracy and dumb fun. "I've Got A Flair" is an anthem for assholes, the proud mission statement of a spoilsport, buoyed by the sort of chord changes and choral harmony payoffs too seldom heard since the mid '60s. "Leave The Biker" is an impassioned plea to a lover who's, well, seeing a biker, bringing middle-class caste issues to a hilarious boil. "Please Don't Rock Me Tonight" subverts the glandular rush of classic pop valentines to offer a glorious anthem to diminished libido, truly a pop taboo.

It's worth noting that Schlesinger is the culprit behind the deviously enjoyable title song to That Thing You Do!, Tom Hanks' loving and laser-accurate cinematic paean to the lost pop innocence of 1964, which perfectly captures the delirium of that era while injecting a knowing sense of how profoundly the culture has changed since. After bathing in these Fountains, Schlesinger's big-screen smarts make total sense.

Sam Sutherland