FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE – SKY FULL OF HOLES
Fountains of Wayne are a band that are as wonderfully enjoyable as they are frustrating. They are a band that know the joys and delights of melody and harmony like few others today, their encyclopedic knowledge of pop music clear – from Phil Spector to The Beatles to Big Star and beyond.And the ability of songwriters Adam Sclesinger and Chris Collingwood has always been to take that knowledge and subvert it in ways that are both familiar and invigorating, for there is nothing new in pop music. Unfortunately Sky Full of Holes has more of the familiar and less of the invigorating. That’s not to say it isn’t full of delightful pop songs, guitars, melodies and horns aplenty.You will sing along to the buzz of Radio Bar – “One night there was a girl there / For some reason she pulled up her chair / She said why don’t we go somewhere / So I passed her her coat / That was all that she wrote / That was it for the Radio Bar”. But it is a comfortable album for the band. This is a Fountains album, but it is not the Fountains album.
*** 1/2
