My Amazon Reviews: Fountains of Wayne "Sky Full of Holes"

Power Pop has its 2011 winner  
4 Out of 5 Stars 

Fountains of Wayne have always been a tightrope act, treading the wire between delightfully goofy pop and biting tart lyrical jabs. Songwriters Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger know that they are both pop-masters and satirists, and their "Sky Full Of Holes" both mines that vein and comes off as a surprisingly conformist pop album. Well, at least as conformist as you can get when the first line sung is "She's been afraid of the Cuisinart since 1977."

That song, "The Summer Place," is a darkly funny look at a dysfunctional family and the inverted nostalgia that they have for summer vacations. Then the follow-up is a perversely catchy song about a clueless duo named "Richie and Reuben," who fail at every dopey endeavor they try. That doesn't keep the narrator safe, as Richie and Reuben still managed to sucker him into their crazy schemes. "Sky Full Of Holes" is loaded with these sorts of moments, where the song skips along on an inescapable melody before slipping in the knockout blow.

At the same time, they're writing beautifully sincere songs that should be the rightful hits to follow their top 20 adventure, "Stacy's Mom" in 2004. Both "Someone's Gonna Break Your Heart" and "Hate To See You Like This" should be pop anthems, the kind of songs that Schlesinger drops with scary anonymity into TV and Movie soundtracks. Power Hooks and Killer Choruses in each, and "Someone's Gonna Break Your Heart" is 99% irony free. It's the album's closer that seals the deal, though. "Cemetery Guns" is a touching tribute to a girlfriend's brother lost at war. Arranged with both martial drums and banjo, it's also the source of the album's title, where Adam describes the effect of a 21 Gun Salute. It's a short, sweet song that brings the album to the kind of conclusion that reminds you exactly why Fountains of Wayne are darlings to power pop aficionados, and why this may be my favorite album of 2011.