There's a lot of sugar in Fountains of Wayne. You could get a month-long jolt of artificial energy from just one helping of their self-titled first disc, or the follow-up, Utopia Parkway; syrupy harmonies, magnetic power-pop chords and the occasional dopey keyboard riff have been the group's bread and butter since day one, and it's served them well. Long after other groups have lost the knack for tongue-in-cheek couplets and catchy chord progressions (what have you got to say for yourself, Rivers?), Fountains of Wayne have kept the formula close at hand, and served up some tasty dishes as a result. Songwriter Adam Schlesinger wasn't tapped for the soundtrack to That Thing You Do for nothing, and the pop sensibilities of teen sensations The Wonders infuse much of FoW's latest opus, Welcome Interstate Managers.

As soon as the seconds start ticking and the guitar starts strumming on "Mexican Wine", you know what you're in for: fuzzy guitars, big Warner Bros. drums, and the gravelly voices of Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood, which hang out somewhere between Wayne Coyne's raspy tenor and the boat the British Invasion came in on. Throw in a delicate Beach Boys castanet, and you've got a killer opening number. Indeed, "Mexican Wine" is the biggest rocker on the record. To be fair, the first single, "Stacy's Mom", aims for king of the hill, but its routine pacing keeps it from breaking away from the pack-- even if the crystalline harmonies during the chorus are worth noting.

As it just so happens, it's the duo's vocal harmonies that end up being the biggest boon for Welcome Interstate Managers, and no cut here makes this clearer than "Hackensack" (the couplet "I saw you talkin'/ To Christopher Walken" helps some), which highlights Schlesinger's 50s pop fixation while also encompassing jangly guitar and dreamy crooning. And ballads like "Valley Winter Song" and the upbeat, acoustic "Hey Julie" might find themselves dead in the water without their clever vocal pairings-- the kind Fountains of Wayne have falling out their back pockets. Even when the instrumentation gets stale ("Little Red Light" and the Ben Folds Five redux "Fire Island" are prime offenders), the creamy, chocolate-covered melodies are there to offer up a little redemption.

I like TastyCakes. They're sugary, they're bad for me, but I like them. I wouldn't eat a boxful of them in one go, though; too much of a good thing, as someone who's probably dead once said. That's the biggest problem with Welcome Interstate Managers, and in many ways the entire Fountains of Wayne catalog. I don't fault the band for being disposable; on the contrary, these guys are so in love with being disposable that you can't help but have fun. Even if it seems unlikely that you'd ever be driving through the 'burbs with the windows down, singing "Stacy's mom/ Has got it goin' on," I assure you it'll happen. And although the lyrics to "Halley's Waitress" are nothing less than moronic, the 70s power ballad trappings are straight-up masterful.

Still, Fountains of Wayne are guilty of taking themselves a bit too seriously here, or at least trying to prove their legitimacy, when they should be goofing around. How else to explain the peddle steel country of "Hung Up on You" which-- despite nailing the inbred cleverness of Nashville lyricism ("Ever since you hung up on me/ I'm hung up on you")-- is a good example of how to fuck up a good thing, right and proper. Ditto the god-awful "Peace and Love"; I really can't tell if they're making fun of hippies or giving them a big sloppy kiss, but the track stretches the band's magic so thin, I seriously considered starting a band just so I could quit in disgust.

Despite its obviously short shelf-life, Welcome Interstate Managers is delicious power-pop, unpretentious, loose and perfect for teenagers driving down to Ocean City for the weekend; Schlesinger and Collingwood pen some mighty fine tunes ripe and ready for sing-alongs, drawing equally on the lighter-than-air innocence of the 1950s and the skewed songwriting skills of Ween and They Might Be Giants. Too much Fountains of Wayne will seize your stomach, but like a wide-eyed babe on Easter morning, you won't know you've overindulged until it's too late.

-Mark Martelli, June 18th, 2003