I love Fountains of Wayne's lyrics. The line about being afraid of a Cuisinart in 'Summer Place' starts out the album in perfect FoW mode. Everytime I go to New York City, I can not help but think of stories they have told on their various albums as I stumble upon various landmarks/neighborhoods.
'Richie and Ruben' is a little safe and pedestrian as a number of songs on their last couple of albums have been, but with repeated listens it grows on you. As the end of the song fades out, it sounds a little like lounge music from a TV sitcom. The keyboard in 'Someone's Gonna Break Your Heart' is great and I love their harmonies. This song has the old FoW magic!
As I said, very few artists tell stories like this. 'Action Hero' is almost country-like in the focus on story telling. 'A Dip In The Ocean' is the best song on the album. I put this song on repeat so many times that my wife finally had to ask me to stop.
Listening to 'Road Song' makes me wonder if FoW watched Elizabethtown and imagined Kirsten Dunst singing this song to Orlando Bloom. It has a very country chill vibe to it. 'Hate To See You Like This' is about as epic sounding as FoW gets. The best line on the album is in this song - "let's get this room disinfected, let's get your phone reconnected." I really like the ending to 'Radio Bar', but what was up with the resurgence of the horn in popular music in 2011? Lady Gaga and Katy Perry also come to mind for having incorporated them into their music this past year.
And what about the cover art... it kind of looks like someone trying to be clever by suggesting that the trees are getting revenge on all of those books that were made from their brothers and sisters. This album brings us a couple more great FoW tracks and is a reasonably good listen as a whole.
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